by Allan Fox:: #6 IBF Curtis Stevens (27-4, 20 KO’s) and former WBO interim 160-poun champion Hassan N’Dam (30-1, 18 KO’s) are in negotiations for an IBF middleweight eliminator bout on September 20th at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The winner of the Stevens vs. N’Dam fight will become the mandatory challenge to IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman.
Felix Sturm, Martin Murray and David Lemieux reportedly passed on the idea of taking the IBF eliminator to face Curtis Stevens. According to Fightnews, Sturm turned down the fight against Stevens because he’s got a shoulder injury.
It’s unclear why Martin Murray and Lemieux turned down the fight. To be sure, it would have been very, very tough on either of those guys to try and beat a puncher with the kind of power and experience that #6 IBF Stevens has going for him.
Stevens is coming off of an exciting come from behind 10th round knockout of the very tough Tureano Johnson last April. That was a fight where Stevens took a great deal of punishment before coming back to get Johnson out of there in the 10th round with a flurry of power shots to the head.
N’Dam was beaten by Peter Quillin by a 6 knockdown, 12 round decision loss two years ago in October 2012. D’Dam fought well in that fight when he wasn’t getting knocked down left and right. Unfortunately for N’Dam, he couldn’t handle Quillin’s big power shots for any length of time without going down. Since that loss, N’Dam has won his last three fights in beating Anthony Fitzgerald, Ricardo Marcelo Ramallo and Fulgencio Zuniga.
Stevens fought WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin last year in November in getting knocked out in the 8th round of a slightly competitive fight. In his next fight, Stevens destroyed Patrick Majewski by a 1st round knockout last January.
Stevens should be able to blast through N’Dam without any problems, as long as he hasn’t lost anything from the head down he took in his last fight against Johnson.
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