Adonis Stevenson to fight next in June or July, no mention of Kovalev

By Boxing News - 04/05/2015 - Comments

stevenson63By Dan Ambrose: After his fairly one-sided 12 round unanimous decision win over 35-year-old former WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-7, 21 KOs) last Saturday night, WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (26-1, 21 KOs) says he’ll be back in the ring in June or July against whoever his adviser Al Haymon chooses for him to fight.

The 37-year-old Stevenson made no mention of IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs), who the World Boxing Council recently ordered Stevenson to start negotiations with last March.

This would be big news if Stevenson chooses not to fight Kovalev and dares the WBC to strip him of his 175 pound title for failing to take the fight. It would also run counter to what Stevenson told the HBO commentators during Kovalev’s last fight against Jean Pascal on March 14th. Stevenson told HBO that he would be facing Kovalev. It would be a real pity if Stevenson vacates his WBC title or has it stripped from him by the WBC for failing to take on the hard hitting Russian fighter.

“As far as what’s next, I’ll wait and see what Al (Haymon) has for me. I’ll be ready to go again by June or July,” Stevenson said via Fightnews.com. “Being involved with Premier Boxing Champions and fighting on CBS has been a great experience. Bika used his head a bit and tried to brawl, but I was able to control the fight. I knew he didn’t just come to Canada for fun, but to win.”

Bika used a lot more than his head to get a victory. He was nailing Stevenson with big shots in the fight especially during the 11th and 12th rounds. That wasn’t Bika’s head that kept tagging a tired-looking Stevenson with shots in the last two rounds. Stevenson didn’t look good in the way he gassed out at the end of the fight with Bika. Stevenson also didn’t make himself look good by showboating against Bika. Stevenson was fighting a former world champion in facing Bika, and it didn’t look good the way Stevenson appeared to show Bika no respect by showboating. The thing is the showboating led to Stevenson getting hit a lot while he was against the ropes. He was trying to clown to the Canadian boxing fans to show that Bika wasn’t able to hit him, but then he was nailed a number of times in the head while still smiling. The showboating backfired on Stevenson.

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Stevenson won the Bika fight by the scores of 115-111, 116-110 and 115-110 at the Pepsi Coliseum, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

If Stevenson doesn’t face Kovalev next, then it’s anyone’s guess who it’ll be. There’s been talk of Stevenson facing Andrzej Fonfara again, but that’s not likely to happen because Fonfara has a fight this month on April 18th against former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. The odds of Fonfara being able to come back two to three months after that fight for another bout against Stevenson is unlikely.

There’s really not a lot of other guys in the light heavyweight division for Stevenson to fight other than Kovalev, Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal. If the WBC strips Stevenson of his WBC title, then his next fight will have far less meaning because he’ll be just another contender once again. I don’t imagine that Stevenson’s fans will be too pleased to learn that he vacated or had his WBC title taken away from him for failing to face Kovalev. The fans will wonder why Stevenson didn’t take the fight. It’s not as if Stevenson has been facing solid opposition since he captured the WBC title two years ago with a win over Chad Dawson. Bika was Stevenson’s best opponent by far, and even that fight was a mismatch.



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