Stevenson retains crown
MONTREAL: Adonis Stevenson stopped Polish challenger Andrzej Fonfara at 28 seconds of the second round on Saturday night to successfully defend the World Boxing Council light heavyweight title.
The Montreal fighter pounded Fonfara with left-hand blows before Fonfara’s corner waved to referee Michael Griffin to stop the beating.
“I said, as soon as I catch him, I’m going to knock him out, but I wasn’t sure I’d catch him that quickly,’’ Stevenson said. “In the second, I put on the pressure and finished the job.’’
Stevenson (29-1) defended the title he won in 2013 and beat Fonfara (29-5) for the second time, this time much more easily than his win by unanimous decision in 2014 that saw both fighters hit the canvas.
This time, the southpaw Stevenson came out firing lefts from the start. He put Fonfara down midway through the first and ended the round raining blows on the right-hander.
The onslaught continued at the start of the second with at least five clean lefts landing before the bout was stopped.
“I didn’t see the first knockdown, it was so fast,’’ said Sugar Hill, Stevenson’s trainer. “Everyone knows Adonis has a devastating left hand and that’s their game plan, to try to stop the left hand. But he throws it from so many different angles. That’s his weapon of choice and nobody’s stopped it yet. So he’s going to keep using the left hand.
“In the second round, he just walked up and it was left hand, left hand, left hand. That was it. And they were hard blows.’’
Stevenson said his preference for his next fight is a unification bout against the holder of the titles from the three other major sanctioning bodies: Andre Ward, who in two weeks is scheduled to defend them against the fighter he took them from, Sergey Kovalev. But attempts to match him against them in the past have fallen through, partly because they fight on the HBO network, while Stevenson’s manager Al Haymon is linked to rival Showtime.
Stevenson is more likely to face fellow Montreal-based fighter Eleider Alvarez (23-0), who won a majority decision over former champion Jean Pascal (31-5-1) in the co-feature. Alvarez retained his position as the top-ranked contender and mandatory challenger for the WBC title.
“I want that fight now,’’ Alvarez said. “I think I’ve earned it.’’