By Scott Gilfoid: With a series of easy knockout wins over opponents with inflated records recently, super middleweight contender Adonis Stevenson (18-1, 15 KO’s), #7 WBA, #7 WBO, #9 WBC, #15 IBF, has his trainer Emanuel Steward thinking that the 34-year-old Stevenson is the best fighter in the super middleweight division.

It’s kind of laughable given that Stevenson still hasn’t faced anyone that I would consider to be any could Stevenson’s advanced age of 34. That’s getting up there a bit for someone who has never fought anyone good. By Stevenson’s age, he should have been fighting quality opposition years ago, and yet he still hasn’t.

In watching his last two fights against Jesus Gonzalez and Noe Gonzalez, both of which were knocked out in one or two rounds, Stevenson didn’t look all that good to me. Indeed, I see him as the super middleweight division’s version of Edison Miranda, a slugger who found some success at middleweight between 2005 to 2007 before being exposed by Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham.

Miranda ended up moving out of the middleweight division due to his struggles to make weight, and he hasn’t found the same success since then. In looking at Stevenson’s fights, I think his career is likely to follow along the same lines as Miranda with Stevenson doing well against fighters with inflated records in the top 15, but then getting stopped when he eventually faces a good opponent like Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell, Lucian Bute, Andre Ward, Edwin Rodriguez, Kelly Pavlik, Sakio Bika, and Glen Johnson.

If Steward wants Stevenson to do well at 168, he’s going to need to keep him away from the better fighters because I get the sense that Stevenson can dish it out but he can’t take it.

Last Friday night, Stevenson blasted out #2 WBC Noe Gonzalez (28-2) by a 2nd round TKO. Gonzalez is one of the fighters I was talking about having an inflated record. He’s got a ton of wins but has fought almost exclusively lower level opposition his entire career. Stevenson looked incredibly sloppy in throwing combinations after he hurt him with a left hand pot shot from the outside. Stevenson was just throwing punches without much speed and not even bringing them back up to protect his chin just in case Gonzalez threw something back at him. Stevenson just looked like a novice in ther against Gonzalez.

Steward needs to come down from the clouds and recognize he has a fighter that is going to likely be in a world of hurt when he finally faces someone that’s actually good. I just hope Stevenson fights a good opponent one of these days before he ages out.