Tonight in Montreal two fights that seemed poorly matched on paper turned out to be more or less as poorly matched in the ring. In the main event Adonis Stevenson successfully defended his WBC light heavyweight title over Andrzej Fonfara by easy stoppage in a completely unnecessary rematch while Eleider Alvarez predictably scored a twelve round decision over Jean Pascal in the Showtime opener.
Andrzej Fonfara (29-5, 17 KOs) took a hellacious beating in the first. Adonis Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs) landed a couple huge straight lefts that hurt his Polish challenger midway through the round. He went down and rose on shaky legs. Over the last thirty seconds of the round Stevenson threw almost exclusively straight lefts, landing them at will.
Round two was a few seconds of the same. After three or four straight lefts that had Fonfara in trouble again right at the start of the round, Fonfara’s new trainer Virgil Hunter stepped on the apron to stop the fight.
There is nothing else to say here. This was a stupid fight beforehand and it played out as a stupid fight. Stevenson clearly won their first meeting despite injuring his powerful left hand that he uses somewhat exclusively for long stretches. There was no reason for this fight to happen, yet it did.
After the fight Stevenson talked how he is the king, how he is superman, and he refused to talk about fighting anyone specific. He gave no impression that he was planning to step up his level of competition.
Opening the Showtime prospect, Stevenson’s mandatory challenger Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) used a consistent jab to keep a largely inactive Jean Pascal (31-5-1, 18 KOs) at bay for a twelve round decision that should have been unanimous. Instead, one difficult to defend 114-114 card came in that was thankfully overruled by two Eleider Alvarez cards scored at 117-111 and 116-112.
S8C scored the fight 116-112 and Showtime’s Steve Farhood came in at 117-111. These cards make sense round by round, but they also creates an impression that the fight was closer than it was. Pascal was able to steal three or four inactive rounds by flurrying at the end, but Alvarez won basically any round in which he moved his hands consistently. His jab was especially effective.
Overall, despite long lulls, the fight wasn’t a bad watch due to the explosive nature of when they did exchange. Pascal showed he does have a little left, which must admit I did not expect. He also illustrated that he is no longer able to bring the activity needed to win at this level, however. With the wars he has been through, it makes sense that he is starting to have real difficulty pulling the trigger at this late stage of his career. Pascal is an old 33.
In theory we will now move on to Adonis Stevenson defending his belt against Eleider Alvarez. Given the fact that Alvarez is a really good fighter, we’ll see. Stevenson has not shown much of a desire to fight anyone who could be a threat.
