A straight left in the first round had the Pole sprawling on the canvas, and in the second, Stevenson continued his onslaught with some vicious shots to rack up early points on the scorecards.
As Stevenson piled on the pressure, the taller Fonfara seemed out of his depth and ready to be stopped as he was struggling to cope with the physical prowess of the bigger, stronger champion. Fonfara managed to steady the ship in the fourth, but was still nowhere near doing enough to win the rounds as Stevenson loaded up with sold hits time and again looking for that one-punch ending.
A beautiful left to the body put the brave Fonfara down for a second time in the fifth session and it was looked as if it was just a matter of time before Stevenson would land that telling blow. Another similar body shot had Fonfara wincing again in the sixth, but he continued to come forward and engage with Stevenson despite being totally out-classed by all accounts – and hurt several times.
The seventh was more punishment for Fonfara as he constantly took punches from Stevenson with bad intentions, but managed to hang in there to give the title holder the longest night of his career thus far. A better eighth followed for Fonfara as Stevenson tired, before a massive shock in the ninth as the ‘The Polish Price’ dropped the home fighter with a straight right and proceeded to stalk him for the rest of the round as he tried to catch his breath.
Following a telling off in his corner, a shell-shocked Stevenson came back in the tenth, hurting Fonfara on many occasions, and carried on his good work through to the eleventh. A rejuvenated Stevenson focused his efforts on Fonfara’s vulnerable mid-section, but did manage to connect with a couple of stinging uppercuts and headed into the final round well on top once again.
The final stanza was much closer though as Fonfara came on strong to give the crowd a rousing finish, which was academic as Stevenson did more than enough early on to be confident of getting the decision. Jimmy Lennon Jr read out cards of 116-109 and 115-110 (twice) to confirm Stevenson the victor, although the self-professed superhero may just have lost some of his formidable powers in those twelve rounds.
IBF and WBA title holder Bernard Hopkins could well be salivating at the prospect of taking on Stevenson on this less-than convincing evidence – in what would be a massive three-belt unification on Showtime in the fall.
Follow on Twitter @PhilDJay for tweets of upcoming news on WBN
