Boxingscene is reporting that a Chad Dawson-Andrzej Fonfara light heavyweight co-feature has been added to the March 4 Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia undercard at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The bout may or may not be televised on the CBS broadcast, but it will be the no. 3 bout on the card, underneath the main event and the intriguing junior middleweight match between Erickson Lubin and Jorge Cota, which is set to open the network telecast.
Also on the card is female star Heather Hardy and the interesting pairing of Argentina’s veteran former world champ Omar Andres Narvaez against undefeated Puerto Rican top prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez in a bantamweight bout.
But, getting back to Dawson-Fonfara.
Yeah, yeah…for all intents and purposes, Dawson (34-4, 19 KOs) is done. Barring some miraculous return to form and an unexpected revamping of his ring approach, “Bad” Chad will enter the ring as the fighter who is 3-3 in his last six and who only seems to be fighting these days to pay his light bill. He has clearly been going through the motions for the last three years since being stopped by Andre Ward and Adonis Stevenson in back-to-back bouts (and some would say that he’s been going through the motion for most of his career, even in his prime).
But, what happens when a guy who is just going through the motions is matched against someone looking to go for the kill?
Either the slacker steps up and battles like never before, lost in the drive for self-preservation or he is crushed in a most dynamic fashion. Either way, there will be dynamite.
Unlikely Polish top contender, Fonfara (28-4, 16 KOs) fought his way out of fringe contender status after a surprisingly competitive challenge for Adonis Stevenson’s WBC title in 2014, followed by wins over Nathan Cleverly and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. His recent first round knockout loss to underdog Joe Smith Jr. in June is going to make Fonfara eager to get back into the title picture with a high-profile win. And expect that eagerness for victory to manifest itself as a full-on attack against a fighter in Dawson who still carries name recognition and appears to be very vulnerable to an ugly thrashing.
Common sense says that Fonfara will probably beat up and then beat down a worn-out Dawson, but boxing fans should be okay with a bout like this. Not everything has to be Gatti-Ward or Corrales-Castillo.
Dawson-Fonfara, at the very least, will be a key second tier light heavyweight match-up likely to deliver a decisive result, but also carrying with it the slight (but somewhat realistic) possibility of seeing a champion reborn.
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