By Jim Dower: #6 WBC light heavyweight contender Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) had to struggle hard on Saturday night to defeat little known 32-year-old Doudou Ngumbu (33-6, 12 KOs) by an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.
Fonfara was hit constantly by the quicker Ngumbu, and he was fortunate that the France-based fighter ran out of gas. As it was, Fonfara took a lot of punishment, and ended up with a reddened face a bloody nose. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 97-93, and 97-93.
Ngumbu controlled the action in the first two rounds with his powerful left hooks and right hands. He showed good hand speed in connecting cleanly in almost every round of the fight.
In the 5th, Fonfara hurt Ngumbu with a hard left hook that sent him staggering to the ropes. Fonfara attempted to score a knockout, but Ngumbu did a good job of holding on for the final minute and a half of the round.
Fonfara fought well in the 10th round in throwing a lot of punches, and dominating the round. If Fonfara had fought every round like this one, he would have had an easy fight.
Fonfara wants a rematch with WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, who beat Fonfara by a 12 round unanimous decision last May. I’m not sure that Fonfara’s performance tonight impressed Stevenson enough to want to waste time fighting this guy again. Fonfara soaks up too much punishment to give him any chance in a rematch against Stevenson.
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Challenger Alejandro Hernandez (28-11-2, 15 KOs) gave World Boxing Organization bantamweight champion Tomoki Kameda (31-0, 19 KOs) all he could handle in losing a 12 round split decision.
The judges scored the fight 115-113 and 115-113 for Kameda, and 115-113 for Hernandez. Kameda gassed out after the 8th round, and this enabled Hernandez to come on and make the fight a lot closer than it should have otherwise been.
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In a foul plagued fight, #2 WBA super featherweight contender Javier Fortuna (26-0-1, 19 KOs) stopped Abner Cotto (18-3, 8 KOs) by a 5th round knockout. Fortuna hit Cotto with a left hand that flattened him in sending him down face first on the canvas in the 5th. The official time of the stoppage was 1:12 of the 5th.
It didn’t look like that big of a shot, but Cotto went down anyway. In the previous found, Fortuna lost a point for nailing Cotto with a shot after the bell that sent him down in a delayed reaction.
In the 3rd round. Cotto dropped Fortuna with two big rabbit punches to the back of the head. The referee for some reason counted it as a knockdown despite the fact that Fortuna was clearly dropped by two shots to the back of the head. The referee then deducted a point from Cotto for the rabbit punches, but he still counted the knockdown.
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