BoxRec

Philadelphia southpaw Tevin Farmer pursues his 21st consecutive victory and second straight knockout in as many IBF 130-pound title defenses against Francisco Fonseca on the undercard of Rocky Fielding’s WBA “regular” super middleweight title defense against Canelo Alvarez, who will pursue a third crown in as many divisions on December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The 28-year-old Farmer (27-4-1, 6 KOs) traveled to Australia to win the vacant crown by near shutout (120-107, 119-108, 118-109) unanimous decision over Billy Dib (43-5, 24 KOs) before his partisan fans in August, dropping the former IBF featherweight champion with a clean left hand in the ninth-round.

“Tevin Farmer has a great story but more importantly to me the man can really fight,” said Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing USA and DAZN, which is streaming the event. “He showed great heart to...go to Australia to win the title – and now the world is his oyster. We are going to keep him nice and busy..."

Farmer has gone 20-0 with five knockouts since October 2012, when a seventh-round TKO as a late replacement to Puerto Rican Olympian Jose “Sniper” Pedraza improved the winner to 11-0 with seven knockouts.

Now a two-division title winner and current WBO 135-pound champion, Pedraza (25-1, 12 KOs) has a unification on December 8 with WBA counterpart Vasyl Lomachenko (11-1, 9 KOs), a three-division title-winner and two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist.

Farmer was 7-4-1 with 1 KO after falling to Pedraza, rebounding in 2013 by going 7-0 with two knockouts, including a unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Camilo Perez that October.

tbh for all the 'did things the hard way' talk, i find his opposition a little underwhelming

in title fights hes faced ogawa, totally faded dib, tennyson, now fonseca, and likely the jono carrol-guillume frencois winner after that. thats not the 'hard way', more like the pampered way now tbh. he didnt really beat anyone good on the way up either

jamamb wrote: ↑12 Nov 2018, 07:48 tbh for all the 'did things the hard way' talk, i find his opposition a little underwhelming

in title fights hes faced ogawa, totally faded dib, tennyson, now fonseca, and likely the jono carrol-guillume frencois winner after that. thats not the 'hard way', more like the pampered way now tbh. he didnt really beat anyone good on the way up either

Yehh it’s just the fact that he never lost for a long time. ‘His story’ if you wanna call it.

On onw hand he's a busy champion, and that's great, on the other hand his competition is dire

Boxing Prospect wrote: ↑28 Nov 2018, 10:28 On onw hand he's a busy champion, and that's great, on the other hand his competition is dire

You're right that his opposition has been softer than fellow super feather champs Davis or Berchelt. Even so Farmer has slowly but steadily upped his game since he started out as a total scrub, winning only 4 of his first 8 pro bouts. If he continues to improve he could eventually compete with the "big dogs" at 130.

Farmer's lack of amateur experience (only 16 bouts) means he still has lots of room for improvement as a pro.

Fight week.

I think Fonseca will give it a good go, like he did against Davis.