I’ve been a big fan of this guy ever since I saw him enter the ring in a Polish hussaria armor (so fucking awesome). He doesn’t seem to get much attention at all though. Whenever I’ve asked people who watch Boxing about him they say they’ve never heard of him. At first I thought “That’s fair enough, he hasn’t really had many big fights/wins” but that’s just not true. He’s fought all of the biggest names at super-middle and light-heavyweight (except for canelo because Fonfara had already moved up in weight when Canelo became a big name). He beat Chad Dawson in his prime. He beat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. with a TKO. He made him quit on the stool, which is quite an achievement if you ask me considering Chavez Jr. is a proud, Mexican warrior who only had one loss on his record going into that fight. He also beat Nathan Cleverly after a great fight. His record is 29-4 right now which, admittedly isn’t amazing in Boxing. He also has two losses to fairly unknown fighters early in his career, but in the last five years or so he’s only lost to Joe Smith Jr. and Adonis Stevenson, who are both world-class boxers. He wasn’t completely out-classed in either of those fights which tells me he should be ranked right up there with the best at the moment. He’s 6″2, but his movement and technique is so good for a tall guy. His fight IQ is very high, he’s incredibly smart in there and always sticks to his gameplan. He doesn’t fight on pure instinct, he’s more of a professor, which I think is part of the reason why he doesn’t get the credit he probably deserves. He’s also not a KO-artist, stopping his opponents 17 times out of 29 wins. I have to think that this is the main reason why he doesn’t get regarded as one of the best because let’s not kid ourselves - unless you’re Floyd Mayweather and nobody can beat you or even knock you down then you’re going to have to have something special going for you to make people take notice. Whether that be putting people to sleep or just being incredibly fast and almost untouchable like Lomachenko, you have to have something. Unfortunately great all-rounders and smart fighters such as Andrzej Fonfara will be put to the side by most boxing fans. He definitely has my respect and support, and I’m sure other fighters respect his abilities too. Hopefully he wins his rematch with Adonis Stevenson and gets some more recognition, because he sure deserves it. At 29 years of age he still has a few years in the game, so let’s see if he can leave it and be remembered as a great or forgotten by all but the Polish Boxing community.
