By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (26-1, 21 KOs) could possibly be defending his WBC title in native homeland of Haiti for his next fight in September, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The 37-year-old Stevenson now lives and fights in Canada, but he’d still like to explore having his next fighter in Haiti.
Stevenson’s promoter Yvon Michel is exploring the possibility of staging it over there. The Stevenson fight would potentially be televised by Showtime in the United States.
Last month, Stevenson defeated former WBC 168 pound champion Sakio Bika by a 12 round unanimous decision on April 4th. Stevenson attempted to score a knockout, but Bika was able to take his best shots without getting halted. The fight was really one-sided though from start to finish with the bigger, stronger and much faster Stevenson having his way with Bika.
Bika needs a quality opponent to get the attention from fans, as four out of his last five fights have been dull mismatches with Stevenson beating up on over-matched opposition. The only interesting fight during that time was the Stevenson vs. Andrzej Fonfara fight, and even that was a mostly one-sided fight. Fans want to see Stevenson face guys like Jean Pascal, Sergey Kovalev, Bernard Hopkins and Artur Beterbiev. Those guys should take priority for him over guys like Dmitry Sukhotsky and Bika.
Can Robert Garcia turn Chavez Jr’s career around
Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has dumped trainer Joe Goosen in favor of Robert Garcia for his next fight against Marco Reyes on July 18th in Texas, possibly in San Antonio, Houston or El Paso. It wasn’t surprising that Chavez Jr. made the decision to dump Goosen after Chavez Jr’s 10th round knockout loss to Andrzej Fonfara.
It was predictable that Chavez Jr. would make a chance in trainers, because he did the same thing when he dumped trainer Freddie Roach after losing a 12 round unanimous decision to Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr. was totally outclassed by Martinez in that fight apart from a brief bit of excitement in the 12th round after he knocked Martinez down. But it’s unclear whether it matters who trains Chavez Jr. at this point.
Robert Garcia is one of the best trainers in the business, but he can only do so much if Chavez Jr. fails to make the changes that he needs with his fighting style, and his training. Chavez Jr. needs to get his weight down, and come into his fights in the best possible condition. Unfortunately for Chavez Jr., he hasn’t been doing that lately, and he’s been wasting time fighting middleweights that he pulls up to 168 and 175 pound divisions.
“For my next fight, my official trainer will be Robert Garcia,” Chavez said.
According to Rafael, there still isn’t a deal that has been done for Chavez Jr. to be trained by Garcia. It’s unclear when/if the deal will be consummated. But even if it is, Garcia is going to have his work cut out for him in trying to turn Chavez Jr’s sagging career around.
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