By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC 175 lb. contender Tony Bellew might have to do some waiting before he eventually gets a shot at newly crowned WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s) because he’s looking for bigger game; namely Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) or IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KO’s). Those were the names that Stevenson mentioned last night after his stunning 1st round knockout win over WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-3, 17 KO’s) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Stevenson knocked Dawson out with a left hand to the head a little over a minute into the fight. Dawson never even got a got chance to get warmed up before he was starched out by Stevenson.
After the fight, Stevenson said “I want to unify the titles against Bernard Hopkins or fight Andre Ward.”
Well, it looks like Tony Bellew’s name wasn’t among the names Stevenson mentioned, so I hope Bellew has someone else to fight while he waits for Stevenson to get his schedule free because it could be a while. I wouldn’t be surprised it Bellew ends up waiting until the end of 2014 before he gets a shot at the WBC strap depending on whether Stevenson can get Ward or Hopkins.
Ward doesn’t have an opponent yet and I could see him taking the fight with Stevenson. I’m not sure though whether Ward will be okay with moving up to 175 to take the fight, but I think he’ll work with it.
The only way I could see Ward saying no to a fight with Stevenson is if IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch started showing some serious interest in fighting him. That’s probably not going to happen, so Stevenson is looking like a real possibility for Ward if Hopkins doesn’t get the action first.
I like Stevenson a lot, but he loses to Ward big time if that fight happens. I think Dawson has lost his ability to take a hard shot for some reason after his knockout loss to Ward last year in September. Ward dropped Dawson three times en route to stopping him in the 10th.
Before the fight, there was talk that Dawson had been knocked out by Edison Miranda in sparring 2 weeks before the fight. Ward would be able to get on the inside against Stevenson and dominate him. Stevenson is a good outside fighter, but when his opponents get in close, his power goes away and he’s very average.
Look at his fights against Don George and Darnell Boone. The power wasn’t there for Stevenson whenever his opponents got in close. The thing is Ward would get in close and stay there for 12 rounds, and give Stevenson a real beating.
I think Hopkins would give Stevenson a lot of problems as well because he would take his best shots and smother his offense and force him to fight his inside fight.
Comments are closed.