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Fonfara bests former champ Johnson

Andrzej Fonfara, Chicago light heavyweight by way of Poland, lit a fire under his fans Friday night at the UIC Pavilion with a one-sided but exciting upset of former super middleweight world champion Glen Johnson.

Fonfara started well with an aggressive and fast-paced first round, but Johnson’s experience came to the fore in the second round when it appeared he might turn the fight around quickly.

Fonfara seemed grim and determined to start the third as if his career depended on him coming up with an answer to Johnson’s skill. He won the round, and was on his way to a unanimous decision.

Fonfara showed a variety of skills, including punching well with both hands and mixing up his attack to the body and the head. When Johnson landed a good punch, Fonfara would nod at him.

Sensing the upset, the crowd of 3,949 cheered wildly at the start of the 10th round as Fonfara encouraged them by pumping his arms. The crowd chanted “Andrzej, Andrzej, Andrzej” during the round.

By the end of the fight, Johnson looked tired, and afterward announced his retirement.

When the final bell rang, Fonfara’s promoter, Dominic Pesoli, ran into the ring and lifted the fighter as the crowd sensed the upset. They erupted in cheers when the ring announcer intoned “your winner, the Polish prince,” Fonfara’s nickname.

In an earlier fight, local welterweight Ivan Popoca withstood an early assault from former world champion Jose Luis Castillo and made their scheduled 10-rounder competitive only to have referee Pete Podgorski halt the bout between the eighth and ninth rounds because of severe cuts near both of Popoca’s eyes and on the bridge of his nose. Popoca had been cut as early as the fourth round, and the ringside physician inspected the cuts in the sixth round, but let the fight continue.

The blood flowed freely, and couldn’t be stopped between rounds.

The crowd had been entertained wildly by the punch fest until the stoppage.

Popoca was badly hurt halfway through the first round when he was tagged by a Castillo left hook and ended up trapped in Castillo’s corner. Popoca was able to get out of the corner, but never got off the ropes for the remainder of the round.

He soon was trapped in a neutral corner and ended the round in his own corner, where he landed some rights of his own, but was hurt a little by another left hook. He never attempted to hold Castillo to survive the onslaught.

Things turned even worse for Popoca in the second round, when a left hook sent him to the canvas. He got up and switched to southpaw for most of the rest of the fight.

Castillo seemed to hurt his dangerous left hand in the sixth round, and barely threw it the rest of the way, relying solely on the right in the seventh and eighth.

Although he fought back gamely, Popoca didn’t appear to win enough rounds to have won if the fight had gone to the scorecards.