Adonis Stevenson vs. Thomas Williams Jr tonight

By Boxing News - 07/29/2016 - Comments

stevenson3

Photo credit: Dave Nadkarni/Premier Boxing Champions) By Patrick McHugh: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis “Superman” Stevenson (27-1, 22 KOs) will be looking to make a successful defense of his WBC belt tonight against the 28-year-old American Thomas “Top Dog” Williams Jr (20-1, 14 KOs)at the Centre Videotron in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Both fighters have KO power in each fist. Stevenson does well when he’s given space and time to throw his big power shots from the outside. Stevenson isn’t quite as good when his opponents get in close and throw flurries at him. Stevenson needs room to get leverage on his punches and to use his hand speed. When Stevenson is on the inside, his hand speed and power is almost totally negated.

Fortunately for Stevenson, his opponents haven’t been very bright because they’ve failed to pick up on his major flaw in his game. Almost all of the fighters that have face Stevenson in the last six years, have fought him on the outside. The one guy that did take him to the inside was Darnell Boone, who stopped Stevenson in the 2nd round in 2010. In the Stevenson-Boone rematch in 2013, Stevenson was able to keep the fight at medium to long range distance to punish the journeyman fighter until stopping him in round six.

The 38-year-old Stevenson is the favorite to win by Bovada by the line of -600 to +400 for Williams Jr. Williams Jr. is a good fighter, but he was exposed in the past in losing to Gabriel Campillo by a 5th round retirement in 2014. And although Williams Jr. has won all of his fights since then, he looked beatable in his last match against Edwin Rodriguez last April. Williams Jr. won the fight by a 2nd round knockout, but he was getting hit hard by an undisciplined Rodriguez, who was just throwing wild winging shots from the opening bell. Williams Jr. says he’s learned from the loss to Campillo, but it didn’t look that way in his last fight. Williams Jr. looked every bit as vulnerable in that fight as he did in his last match against Rodriguez.

Where to see it? The Stevenson vs. Williams Jr. fight will be televised tonight on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV.

Location: Centre Videotron in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

Date: July 29

Start time for Stevenson-Williams Jr: 9:00 p.m. ET/PT

This should be a good fight for as long as it lasts. Williams Jr. is a natural slugger with big power, and he’s a lot younger than Stevenson. Williams Jr. is hungry and wants to beat Stevenson real bad because it would lead to life changing money.

It would be a major shock if Stevenson loses tonight, because he’s looked so dominant in the last three years since picking up the WBC 175lb title by stopping Chad Dawson in the 1st round in 2013. Stevenson has passed up on opportunities to fight the big names in the light heavyweight division. He’s seemingly preferred to make simple defenses against the little known challengers that have been lined up for him to fight by his management. While the money that Stevenson has made in his title defenses has been decent, it’s not the kind of money he could have made if he had agreed to fight the likes of Bernard Hopkins, Jean Pascal and Sergey Kovalev.