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On February 7, 2017, ESPN revealed that Fonfara would return to the ring on March 4 on the undercard of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman welterweight unification fight at the Barclays Center in New York. He was scheduled to fight in a 10-round fight against 34 year old, former world champion Chad Dawson (34-4, 19 KOs), who last fought in April 2016 and having lost 3 of his last 6 fights. Fonfara started training with Virgil Hunter before the fight. Going into the tenth and final round, it was reported that Fonfara was behind on the scorecards. 38 seconds into the round, he landed a straight right to Dawson, which shook him, followed by a combination, which forced the referee to stop the fight and claim the much needed win. Dawson was also knocked down in the beginning on round 9, but got back up, beat the count and finished the round. Dawson considered retirement after this fight.