Andrzej Fonfara stops Ismayl Sillakh – Results

By Jeff Aranow: Former two time world title challenger Andrzej Fonfara (30-5, 18 defeated journeyman Ismayl Sillakh (25-6, 19 KOs) by a 6th round knockout on Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round fight at the Torwar Sport Hall in Warsaw, Poland.

Fonfara, 30, unloaded on the 33-year-old Ukrainian Sillakh with a flurry of shots that led to the referee Leszek Jankowiak stepping in and stopping the fight. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:14 of round 6. At the time of the stoppage, Fonfara was up on the scorecards by the scores 49-45, 49-45 and 47-47.

Fonfara was coming off of a 2nd round knockout loss to World Boxing Council World light heavyweight champion Adonis ‘Superman’ Stevenson last year in June at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Fonfaira was no competition for Stevenson, who knocked him down in the 1st round and then finished him off in the 2nd round of a one-sided fight. Stevenson received a massive amount of abuse from boxing fans for picking out Fonfara to defend his WBC 175 lb. title for the second time, as he’d already beaten him by a 12 round unanimous decision in three years earlier in June 2014 in a mostly one-sided fight. Further, Joe Smith Jr. had knocked Fonfara out in the 1st round in June 2016. In other words, Fonfara had done zero to deserve a world title shot against Stevenson. He just got the fight because he was well-known and likely because he presented zero threat to Stevenson.

The loss for Sillakh was his third consecutive defeat.

Before tonight, Fonfara hadn’t fought in his native Poland for 12 years since 2006. Fonfara lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Fonfara was viewed as one of the best fighters in the light heavyweight division up until a couple of years ago. Fonfara’s shine has been extinguished with his second loss to Stevenson and the emergence of talented light heavyweights like Dmitry Bivol, Oleksander Gvozdyk, Badou Jack and Artur Beterbiev.

Despite having been beaten three times in the last four years, Fonfara is ranked #5 WBC. For some reason the WBC has chosen to keep Fonfara ranked in their top 5. It’s a crazy ranking for a fighter who has failed to achieve anything in the last four years. Fonfara’s wins since 2015 have come against Ismayl Sillakh, Chad Dawson, Nathan Cleverly, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Doudou Ngumbu. We’re talking second tier opposition for the most part. Dawson used to be the best fighter in the 175 lb. division, but that was from 2007 to 2009. Things have changed since then with Dawson losing to Andre Ward, Jean Pascal and Stevenson.