He didn’t get his knockout, but Farmer won clean.
IBF junior lightweight titleholder Tevin Farmer (28-4-1, 6 KOs) promised an early knockout over former title challenger Francisco Fonseca (22-2-1, 16 KOs), but that is not his game and never will be. Instead the supremely skilled Philadelphia fighter used his quick twitch reflexes to win most every one of the twelve rounds over Fonseca.
This is not to say that this was a one sided bout, however. On the contrary, each round was pretty competitive in isolation. The problem the Costa Rican title challenger faced by the half way point of the fight is that he wasn’t clearly winning any of them. He could touch Tevin more than most have proven capable of doing, but never quite as much as he was eating in return. Farmer largely fought where Fonseca wanted too by committing to a more in-fighting based style. The titleholder seems keenly aware of his marketing limitations with all his talk of upping his power game, so it stands to reason that this was an intentional choice to make himself more appealing to the casual fan.
Official scores came back 117-111 three times over. I actually had the same score too. Of course Tevin Farmer still wants Gervonta Davis next, but that fight isn’t happening any time soon if ever. Matchroom will keep him busy either way I am sure. As for Francisco Fonseca, he is now a common opponent between Farmer and Davis. Tevin did better against him, though the transitivie property doesn’t tend to hold up well in boxing. Regardless, we should note that Francisco was able to hold his own pretty well against two of the absolute top fighters in the division as well. He deserves credit for that.
This fight became the co-main event to the card when David Lemieux was forced to bow out of his middleweight fight against Tureano Johnson yesterday thanks to a failed weight cut.
