By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight title holder Adonis Stevenson (25-1, 21 KOs) is predicting a knockout victory over former WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-6-3, 21 KOs) in their fight on April 4th at Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City.
If Stevenson, 37, is going to score a knockout over Bika then he’s going to need to put his own chin on the line in this fight, because Bika isn’t someone like Chad Dawson who will fold up the first time he gets with a single hard shot.
Bika is going to be sticking around for the entire fight, forcing Stevenson to fight at close quarters where he has far less skills. If you look at Stevenson’s past fights, he’s a guy who needs to be at medium to long range for him to generate a lot of power.
When he’s in close, he has no power at all and he’s very mediocre. That’s why Stevenson would never be able to beat someone like Andre Ward or Artur Beterbiev, because those guys would smother Stevenson’s offense by staying on top of him, and nailing him with shots at close range.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr4lSRk_7hg
They literally wouldn’t give Stevenson any chance of getting any space to throw his speedy power shots. Bika has shown the ability to do the same thing to his opponents in the past such as in his fights against Ward, Joe Calzaghe and in his first fight against Anthony Dirrell.
The question is can Bika do this against Stevenson on April 4th. If Bika can, then we’ll likely see Stevenson take a beating and wind up getting knocked out. Stevenson doesn’t have a great chin. Indeed, his punch resistance is very weak compared to some fighters.
The only thing that Stevenson has is hand speed and power. But if he can’t get space to deliver his speedy shots, then he’s going to be in deep trouble against Bika.
“I know Bika will stop at nothing, so the fight will be spectacular and extremely offensive-minded. I predict that Bika will lose by knockout for the first time in his career,” Stevenson said.
The Bika-Stevenson fight will take place on Premier Boxing Champions on CBS starting at 3:00 p.m. ET/PT.
Bika lost his last fight to Anthony Dirrell last year in getting beaten by a 12 round unanimous decision. However, it was a very tough fight for Dirrell, who had to take a lot of hard shots in the process of grinding out a 12 round decision.
Stevenson defeated Dmitry Sukhotskiy by a 5th round stoppage last December in a one-sided fight. This was yet another soft defense for Stevenson, who is making it a habit of taking the easier defenses rather than the tougher ones. Since his win over Chad Dawson in 2013 to win the WBC 175 title, Stevenson has beaten Tony Bellew, Tavoris Cloud, Andrzej Fonfara and Sukhotskiy.
“After all these years fighting at 168 pounds, it was becoming increasingly difficult to make weight and that was a major factor in my defeats,” Bika said. “I promise you that I will be the new champion on April 4.”
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