By Sean McDaniel: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson wants fights against Bernard Hopkins or Andre Ward, but the chances of Stevenson getting those fights seem to be slim at the moment as Hopkins has been ordered to defend his IBF light heavyweight title against Sergiy Kovalev next, and Andre Ward isn’t showing any signs that he wants to face Stevenson.
The one fight that the 35-year-old Stevenson could wind up taking is against former IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-1, 19 KO’s). According to Dan Rafael of ESPN, HBO would like to televise this fight next. Cloud lost his title to Hopkins in a 12 round unanimous decision loss last March.
Stevenson beat Chad Dawson by a 1st round knockout this month after Dawson made the mistake of trying to trade with him in the 1st round of their fight.
If this is all Stevenson can get then it’s going to have to do, but it’s not really a great fight. Cloud looked poor against Hopkins last March, and he looked equally poor in his controversial 12 round decision over Gabriel Campillo last year.
HBO pushing for Stevenson-Cloud would be doing Cloud a big favor by giving him a quick shot at another title, but I’m not so sure that it would do boxing fans any favors by because it’s not a great fight.
Cloud was always flawed even when he captured the vacant IBF 175 lb. title four years ago in a narrow 12 round unanimous decision win over Clinton Woods.
A much better match-up for Stevenson would be someone like Sergiy Kovalev. The light heavyweight division is a pretty weak one when you get past the likes of Dawson, Hopkins, Kovalev, Beibut Shumenov and Nathan Cleverly.
There just isn’t a lot of quality fighters for Stevenson to fight, which is probably the only reason he’s a champion right now. Had Stevenson stayed at 168, his chances of success against the likes of Carl Froch and Andre Ward aren’t good.
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