By Scott Gilfoid: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s) MUST fight his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Tony Bellew (20-1, 12 KO’s) next, says Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport.
Hearn wrote to the World Boxing Council to get confirmation that Bellew should be the next opponent for Stevenson, and the WBC wrote back and confirmed this, says Hearn. This means that Stevenson is in a position where he has to face Bellew next or else he’ll be in the position where the WBC could strip him of his title.
Hearn said to Sky Sports, “We have received confirmation that Stevenson must fight Bellew next, and the negotiation period will be 28 days after which the fight will go to purse bids…we worked really hard to get to that mandatory position.”
Stevenson wants to get in a bigger fight Bernard Hopkins rather than facing the little known Bellew. Additionally, HBO wants to set up a fight between American Tavoris Cloud and Stevenson next. Stevenson isn’t excited about that fight, but I’m sure he’ll take it if the money is good. It’s a decent first defense.
As far as Bellew goes, it’s possible they could convince him and Hearn to step aside if they give him a step aside payment so that Stevenson can fight whoever he wishes. Another way around the Bellew title defense would be for Stevenson to fight a unification bout against one of the other light heavyweight champions.
However, I don’t see there being a great deal of interest from the other 175 lb. champions in fighting a talent like Stevenson because he hits too hard, he’s too fast and he fights out of the southpaw stance. Hopkins, Beibut Shumenov and Nathan Cleverly have said nothing about wanting to fight Stevenson and I see that staying that way because he’s just too talented.
Hearn is really doing Bellew no favors in trying to put him in with Stevenson because the Canadian based fighter will destroy the slower, taller Bellew without any problems. That’s not a winnable fight for Bellew as far as I’m concerned. Stevenson punches with too much speed and power for a slow, easy to hit guy like Bellew to beat him.
Earlier this month, Stevenson starched WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in one round after nailing him with a hard left to the head that put Dawson down for the count.
For his part, Bellew is coming off of an unimpressive 12 round unanimous decision win over Isaac Chilemba last month. Bellew looked exhausted the entire second half of the fight and basically just smothered Chilemba and his own punches by wrestling and holding on the inside.
It was awful to look at and I thought Bellew should have lost points for wrestling instead of fighting.
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