Goodnight, Friday Night Fights on ESPN2. Fittingly, the show’s official ending — before it moves to boxing adviser Al Haymon’s empire under a different name — concluded with two knockouts. One was a surprise. One wasn’t.
Brandon Adams, who looked like he would be the best fighter to come out of this installment of the Boxcino tournament, found himself on his butt in the 2nd, surprisingly. He went there a couple more times courtesy John Thompson, who has been at 154 longer than Adams, who moved down from 160 after losing to Willie Monroe, Jr., the star of the last sequence of Boxcino. Adams would never recover from the 1st knockdown, and was stopped in the same round via the referee. Kudos to Thompson for the upset. You have to wonder whether Adams is suited for 154, based on these results.
The heavyweight finale was slightly more competitive, but not by much. Donovan Dennis might’ve won a couple rounds, but in the 3rd, Andrey Fedosov’s stalking paid off and he dropped the more athletic boxer. From there, Fedosov continued stalking and Dennis put up a fight, mainly with his jab, but was dropped again in the 7th and then for good in the 8th. The referee was right to wave it off.
Neither fight was outstanding, per se. Both provided decent entertainment. FNF has always been a show where, if it delivered, it was kind of an unexpected surprise. Tonight, it delivered one unexpected knockout, and one competitive bout. That was good enough.
See you in a new form soon, boxing on ESPN.
