By Jim Dower: Adonis Stevenson (28-1, 23 KOs) views himself as the king of the light heavyweight division by virtue of him holding the WBC 175 pound title, which he’ll be defending this Saturday night on June 3 in a rematch with Andrzej Fonfara (29-4, 17 KOs) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME)
A big crowd is expected to turn out to see Stevenson beat up Fonfara for a second time in what is arguably a needless rematch. Stevenson already beat Fonfara by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2014 after knocking him down two times. The rematch is part of the gripes that some boxing fans have with Stevenson, who hasn’t gone out of his way to fight better opposition.
Stevenson, 39, is sending mixed messages. On one hand, Stevenson says he’s interested in fighting the winner of the June 17 fight between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev, but on the other hand, he says he can only fight who his management puts in front of him for him. In other words, it’s up to Stevenson’s management who he fights.
That’s the unfortunate part, because his management hasn’t shown much inclination to put him in with Kovalev or Ward. Stevenson’s best chance to fight Kovalev came in 2013 when the two of them were both fighting on the same network on HBO Boxing. But just when the two of them were on course to face each other, Stevenson signed with Al Haymon and moved up to Showtime Boxing, which is where he still is.
“It’s a fight I want and you have to give the fans what they want,” said Stevenson to Yahoo Sports News. ”The winner should fight me. I have the linear championship. Do you know what that means? There is one king and that is me. If you want to be the king, you have to defeat the king. That’s the way it has always been.”
It sounds like Stevenson wants to fight the winner of the Ward vs. Kovalev fight, but it doesn’t matter though. Stevenson says it himself that he fights who his management puts in front of him. We’ve already seen the unimaginative match-making that’s been done for Stevenson since he won the WBC title in 2013. Stevenson has been matched against contenders that have had virtually no chance of beating him.
Stevenson has done what anyone would expect him to do in bowling over the soft opposition that his management has put in front of him. The paydays have obviously been nice for Stevenson, as the Canadian boxing fans haven’t turned away from watching his fights despite his lack of quality opponents.
Stevenson doesn’t think he’s getting old. He believes that he’s got more than time people think he has due to him starting late in boxing at age 29. What Stevenson doesn’t seem to realize is that fighters get old whether they take punishment or not. Aging takes place. Even fighters that don’t take punishment get old. Stevenson is 39, and he likely doesn’t have too much time left as a champion. Of course, the World Boxing Council can extend Stevenson’s time as their champion if they don’t force him to fight his mandatory contender.
Right now, Stevenson doesn’t have too much to worry about because the current No.1 contender is Eleider Alvarez. Stevenson can probably beat this guy. But after that, Stevenson is going to have some problems because he’ll need to fight the winner of the Joe Smith Jr. vs. Oleksandr Gvozdyk at some point. If the WBC doesn’t push Stevenson to take the fight against the winner of that fight, then we might not see Stevenson fighting the winner for a long time to come. It’s up to the WBC decide when they want to push Stevenson to take that fight.
“I have time and I have to take it step by step,” said Stevenson in saying that he’s not in a rush to fight the winner of the Kovalev vs. Ward fight.”Everything that is supposed to happen will happen. You just have to wait for the proper time. Floyd Mayweather and [Manny] Pacquiao took [six] years to fight. A lot of people, probably you, never thought it would happen, but it did. It’s not good to rush things.”
Stevenson is saying different things. I’m not sure if he’s seeing things clearly. He says he wants to fight the winner of the Ward-Kovalev II fight, but then he turns around and says you can’t rush things. Which is it? Does Stevenson want to fight the winner of the Ward vs. Kovalev II fight or not? If Stevenson isn’t in a rush to make that fight, then he probably should keep quiet and focus on his rematch with Fonfara.
The fight, by the way, isn’t attracting much interest from the casual and hardcore boxing fans in the U.S. Stevenson-Fonfara II might be creating a buzz in Canada, but it definitely isn’t in the U.S. It’s not a good fight. It’s like seeing the same movie two times in a row. You already know how it’s going to play out. Fonsfara was dominated by Stevenson the last time they fought each other. Yeah, Fonfara briefly had some success against Stevenson, but it only briefly.
Stevenson finished strong in winning by a wide 12 round unanimous decision. Fonfara should be in a BIG rush to fight the winner of the Ward vs. Kovalev II fight, because he could wind up missing out on a big chance to get a big fight before he loses his title and ends up over-the-hill. Kovalev is interested in fighting Stevenson, but Ward isn’t. It’s not a fight that would create a lot of interest in the U.S. Stevenson is known by the hardcore boing fans in the United States, but not the casual fans.
Ward is better off trying to get a fight against someone like Gennady Golovkin rather than Stevenson. If Ward lives in Canada, then it would make sense for him to fight Stevenson. But there’s no real point in Ward going through the hassle of trying to get a fight against Stevenson when he won’t even be recognized if he wins. Picking up against light heavyweight title isn’t a big enough deal for it to be worth it for Ward to take the fight with Stevenson. The boxing public barely recognizes him as the champion at 175 anyway, because it’s not a glamorous division.
Besides that, being a world champion has lost its meaning in this day and age due to the countless work champions in the sport. Being a world champion nowadays often involved being connected with a big time promoter, who can get you world title shots against vulnerable champions. In some cases, having a good promoter lets you get 4 title shots before you finally win a world title. We just saw that with George Groves winning on his 4th title shot.
“My job is to fight whoever they put in front of me, and that’s what I do and what I have always done,” Stevenson said. “I would like to fight the winner, but as I said, I don’t control that. If everyone does their jobs, everything will work out.”
If Stevenson isn’t going to push his management to put him in with better opposition, then he can expect to keep getting the same type of opposition that he’s been getting since he won the WBC title in 2013.
Here are the guys that Stevenson has successfully defended his WBC title against:
– Tony Bellew
– Tavoris Cloud
– Tommy Karpency
– Thomas Williams Jr.
– Andrzej Fonfara
– Dmitry Sukhotsky
– Sakio Bika
The undercard for the Stevenson vs. Fonfara II card has light heavyweight Eleider Alvarez fighting former world champion Jean Pascal. This should be a better fight than the main event. Alvarez is a good fighter, but very vulnerable and not nearly as his record would indicate. Pascal will be a good test to see where this guys at.
