By Jason Kim: Adonis Stevenson (18-1, 15 KO’s) and Don George (23-2-1, 20 KO’s) will be fighting it out this Friday night in an IBF super middleweight eliminator bout from Stevenson’s home country of Montreal, Canada at the Bell Centre.

Stevenson, #2 IBF, is forced to fight #11 IBF George because none of the higher ranking contenders were interested in taking him on perhaps due to his blazing hand speed and incredible power, not to mention his southpaw stance.

Stevenson a very difficult fighter to face because of those combination of traits going for him. The winner of this fight will become the mandatory challenger for IBF champ Carl Froch, but that fight won’t happen until late 2013, if at all.

Froch has several hard fights ahead of him before he gets to defending his title against his mandatory, and if he’s not already beaten by one of the next three opponents he faces, he could end up retiring. The winner of the Stevenson vs. George fight will still get a shot against whoever is the champion next year, and there’s not much to worry about on that end.

Stevenson, 35, has been knocking everyone out lately. He hasn’t beaten a fighter by a decision since 2007, and that shows you how good of a knockout artist he is. He did, however, get beaten by the hard hitting Darnell Boone two years ago when he made the mistake of trying to trade with Boone early on and discovered that’s not the wisest thing to do when he was knocked flat by a hard right hand from Boone.

George, 27, has excellent power of his own and probably has about as much power as Stevenson. However, he’s a lot slower than Stevenson and his punches are easier to be seen. He’s still knocking out most of his opponents lately and hasn’t had to win by a decision for the past two years. He’s lost during that same time frame in defeats against Francisco Sierra and Edwin Rodriguez. George can be out-boxed and he’s slow to react to fast punchers. But if Stevenson can’t get him out early on Friday night then George should be in a good position to win this fight by knockout.