Adonis Stevenson: “Bernard can be next”

By Boxing News - 05/25/2014 - Comments

StevensonFonfara_KR6A5504(Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20 KO’s) escaped with a 12 round unanimous decision victory last night against Andrzej Fonfara (25-3, 15 KO’s) in Montreal, Canada. The performance that Stevenson put in suggested that he’s nowhere near the same class as WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, who has now has to be seen as the No.1 fighter in the light heavyweight division.

“I accept any challenge. Bernard can be next,” Stevenson said last night after his win over Fonfara. “And I have no problem with Kovalev. If I fight him I fight him.”

Stevenson’s decision to move to Showtime virtually guarantees that he’ll never have to face Kovalev during what little time he has left in his career. And if Stevenson has too many performances like the one he put in last night, he won’t remain the WBC champion for much longer, which will be a further reason why he won’t ever see the two of those fighters in the ring.

The only thing that has yet to be discovered is who is the No.2 fighter in the division, and that’s going to be determined when Stevenson faces 49-year-old IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KO’s) for later this year. Before Stevenson’s fight against Fonfara last night, a victory over Hopkins was seen as a forgone conclusion for Stevenson, but not anymore. You have to now see this as a genuine 50-50 fight that could go either way depending on how well Stevenson fights.

It’s doubtful that Hopkins can beat Stevenson by a decision, because there’s no way that Hopkins can match Stevenson’s punch volume at his age. Hopkins, even in his win over former WBA champion Beibut Shumenov last April, he wasn’t throwing a lot of punches. Hopkins didn’t have to because neither was Shumenov, and Hopkins had the hand speed advantage. Against Stevenson, Hopkins will be slower and less active. This means that he’s going to need to knock him out for him to get a victory, because it’s not going to work if Hopkins comes out throwing 20 punches per round to Stevenson’s 60. Unless we see some weird judging, Hopkins will still lose the fight to Stevenson.

Hopkins thinks the boxing fans will see the winner of his fight against Stevenson as the legitimate overall champion in the light heavyweight division because the winner of that fight will hold 3 of the 4 world titles, but I’m not so certain it will. I think the knowledgeable fans will see Kovalev as the real champion and the Hopkins-Stevenson winner as the fighter that hold 3 paper titles won against lesser opposition than Kovalev.

Hopkins beat Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov to win his IBF and WBA titles, and you can make a strong argument that neither of those fighters would have ever held world titles in the 175 lb. if they had to face someone good like Kovalev to win them. That makes Hopkins a paper champion, and we saw last night that Stevenson looked like a paper champion as well in barely beating Fonfara.

It’s too bad that Showtime and HBO can’t come together so that Kovalev can take on the winner of the Hopkins-Stevenson fight, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.



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