By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (23-1, 20 KO’s) made a smart move in leaving HBO for Showtime this week. The move could end up keeping Stevenson as the WBC 175lb champion for a long time to come due to the lack of quality opponents that will be matched up against him. Had Stevenson stayed at HBO, he would have had to face WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev sooner or later, and that’s a fight that Stevenson could very well have lost.
With him moving to Showtime, the only fighter that Stevenson has to worry about is the soon to be 50-year-old Bernard Hopkins, and it’s impossible to say if Hopkins will ever fight him. Once Stevenson gets past the Hopkins bout, there is absolutely no one for him to fight.
Showtime will then be stuck with a good fighter but with no appealing opponents to match him against unless they can lure one of the super middleweights to move up in weight to face him. It does help Stevenson’s career that he doesn’t have to fight Kovalev now. A loss to him would have been catastrophic for Stevenson, but he doesn’t have to worry about that now.
It’s a lose-lose situation for both HBO and Showtime. HBO had Stevenson fighting on their network several times in hopes of matching him against Sergey Kovalev, and now they’re left with nothing to show for it other than the Stevenson vs. Chad Dawson fight, which was the only entertaining fight that Stevenson took part in for their network. Showtime gets Stevenson, but the only decent fight they’re going to see him in is against an aging Hopkis, who was already by Dawson in 2012, and he’s only faced weak opposition since then in Tavoris Cloud and Karo Murat.
Once the Hopkins fight is out of the way for Stevenson, who is Showtime going to have Stevenson fight? It’s going to be like with Andre Ward. He’s a great fighter, but there’s no one to match him against because none of the top fighters want to face him. The light heavyweight division doesn’t have enough talented fighters to match against Stevenson for Showtime to make it worthwhile to have him under contract.
Jean Pascal seems to be Stevenson’s friend, and a fight between them will likely never happen. Beibut Shumenov will likely lose to Hopkins next month. Jurgen Braehmer, the WBA light heavyweight champion, isn’t well known enough in the U.S for a fight between him and Stevenson to be worth watching.
Stevenson defends his title against Andrzej Fonfara on May 24th, and that’s just the beginning of the bad match-making we’ll likely be seeing for Stevenson as long as he stays with Showtime. Yes, he’ll face the soon to be 50-year-old Hopkins, but after he beats Hopkins and sends him into retirement, there won’t be anyone else for Stevenson to fight. Kovalev was the only guy.
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