not a bad performance against a shot european level performer. especially the first 4 or 5 rounds which were practically a lock out. one thing i like about fewkes is he isn't the stereotypical stiff-upper-bodied british boxer. he has good movement and a good defence (well, up until the 6th or 7th). pity he hasn't got the power. if he had power that fight would have been over by the 4th.
He has great support thats for sure. He has all around skills but not enough power to go to the top, he throws his punches with a whack but his big ones never land. I can not remember seeing him land one big punch flush on tontchevs head, decent body shots but no ko power. They are building him up slowly so maybe 6/7 fights down the line we may see him challenging for brit belts.
I have critisised Fewkes in the past but i was well impressed with his variety and ring craft last night. Tonchev is completely shot by the looks of things and didn't come to win but I feel it was a pretty special performance from fewkes. No power because I don't think he has any confidence in his punch power but excellent in most other areas.
Fewkes has faced very light opposition so far so it was a big step up, Tontchev had been on a decent run destroying Dean Phillips not too long ago but his lost to Yuri Romanov was bad but Romanov is a very good european fighter. He came to pace the fight and try and pinch it late on but Fewkes did not slow enough for tontchev to get into the fight. Tonchev was very good a not letting Fewkes land decent shots but did not show enough going forward.
Tonchev looked shot to me mate i've seen a few of his fights and he has never fought like that. He seemed to have very little confidence and looked old and unintrested.
I completly agree about Tontchev but the guy did still have the tools to make sure he did not get stopped, he gave a good lesson in defence but did not want to go for the win too much. I've seen him in the past and been impressed but i guess he's at the point in his career that he wants the pay checks an to not get hurt, i doubt fewkes could have damaged him too badly anyway.
shot or not it was a definite step up for fewkes after fights against heywood etc and if he can improve further i think he could be challenging for domestic honours within a year or two - i don't think he's in any rush as he's only been fighting 4 or 5 times a year since turning pro.
They seem to be moving him very slowly but wisely, it is hard with a guy who is a good boxer but little whack, even if Tontchev is shot its a step up because his previous opponents were of little quality ifhe is supposed to actually be any good, a year or two at about his 20th fight i hope he's put up for a domestic title, if he has not slipped up before then.
I actually think fewkes has been matched reasonably toughly some fairly decent names on his resume already.... he was horrible against Haywood though it was hilarious watching them pose like they were both different incarnations of De La hoya but i agree he was decent last night.
