Dawson-Stevenson on June 8th: Is Adonis for real?

By Boxing News - 05/26/2013 - Comments

679By Allan Fox: Next month super middleweight contender Adonis Stevenson (20-1, 17 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to face WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-2, 17 KO’s) on June 8th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. It’s only 7 pounds from 168 to 175, so it shouldn’t be that big of a move for the 5’11”, 35-year-old Stevenson.

It is a big move as far as quality opposition goes because Stevenson has been pretty well protected in his 7 years as a pro. In his last fight, he chose to avenge an earlier loss to journeyman Darnell Boone (19-21-3, 8 KO’s). Going from fighting the likes of Boone, Noe Gonzalez and Don George to a fighter as good as Dawson, could potentially be a problem for Stevenson.

If Stevenson can’t get a quick knockout in this fight like he’s been doing in most of his fights, he’s going to have problems with Dawson’s jab and his defensive skills.

Stevenson hasn’t been getting hit a lot because he’s a lot faster than his opposition, but against Dawson he potentially is going to get hit quite a bit in this fight.

For Dawson, this also could be a problem fight because he stopped last September in the 10th round by Andre Wad, and there’s no way of knowing how Dawson will react in his first fight since then. To be sure, Stevenson isn’t Andre Ward.

If Stevenson was as good as Ward, he wouldn’t be leaving the super middleweight division for the greener pastures of the light heavyweight division.

Stevenson is a good fighter, but he’s really more of an inexperienced puncher and we might see him have problems if Dawson is able to slow the pace of the fight down to his liking. Stevenson isn’t going to out-box Dawson.

His only chance to win the fight is to jump on Dawson early to try and blast him out before Dawson gets into his groove. If Dawson is able to get any kind of momentum in this fight then Stevenson is going to struggle and will likely lose.



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