By Dan Ambrose: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis “Superman” Stevenson (26-1, 21 KOs) and challenger Tommy Karpency (25-4-1, 14 KOs) made weight on Thursday for their fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike on Friday from the Ricoh Coliseum, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The fight is free in the United States on Spike, but in Canada, it will be shown on pay-per-view. This shows you how popular the 37-year-old Stevenson is because it’s night a fight card that many fans would see as being worthy of PPV.
The Stevenson-Karpency fight is seen as a mismatch, as are some of the undercard fights. Stevenson weighed in at 175lbs. Karpency, 29, weighed in at 174.5 pounds.
This will be Stevenson’s seventh title defense, and arguably his most one-sided on paper. Stevenson has had some easy opponents in the past like Dmitry Sukhotsky, Tavoris Cloud, Tony Bellew and Sakio Bika, but Karpency makes all of those fighters look like great fighters in comparison. Karpency is just a guy who doesn’t seem to belong in the same ring with Stevenson.
It’s Karpency’s job to prove people wrong about him, but as of right now, they see him largely as a knockout waiting to happen. Stevenson can do pretty much what he wants with Karpency, because this is a fight that he should win without any problem.
Stevenson was knocked out in the past by the hard hitting Darnell Boone in the 2nd round in 2010. But Boone had punching power and explosiveness in his favor in that fight. Karpency has neither of those qualities in his arsenal.
The only thing he has going for him is his southpaw stance and moderate power. Karpency can punch a little, but not nearly enough to get someone like Stevenson out of there. Karpency is going to need to come up with a big shot to score a knockout in this fight because it’s the only chance he has of winning it. He’s not going to out-box someone as well as Stevenson, and he’s not likely going to luck out with Stevenson getting injured like Chad Dawson did in his last fight.
In the co-feature, #8 WBA welterweight contender Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs) weighed in at 146.5 pounds for his 10 round fight against #7 IBF Chris Van Heerden (23-1-1, 12 KOs). Van Heerden weighed in at 146.5lbs.
This is Spence’s first real test of his career unless you count his recent fight against Phil Lo Greco. Van Heerden has decent punching power, and good overall boxing skills. If Spence can blow past a guy as talented as Van Heerden then it will be a signal that it’s time for Spence to take a step up in class against a top five contender in the division if he can get a fight against one.
Spence is ready to face WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman, but he doesn’t have a high enough ranking yet to force Thurman to fight him. Thurman has no interest in taking a fight against Spence, which is understandable given the huge risk for the fragile-chinned Thurman.
Other weights on the card:
Prichard Colon 149 vs. Vivian Harris 149
Dillon Carman 234 vs. Razor Ruddock 242.5
Sandy Tsagouris 128 vs. Shannon O’Connell 127
Comments are closed.