Stevenson looking past Bellew; wants Bute-Pascal winner

By Boxing News - 09/29/2013 - Comments

stevenson5By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) may be the next guy to be facing WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (22-1, 19 KO’s) in early 2014, but Stevenson isn’t thinking too much about the Bellew fight.

Instead, Stevenson is highly interested in the January 18th fight between fellow Canadian based fighters Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) and Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.

That’s the much bigger fight for Stevenson then a simple title defense against Bellew, who most casual Canadian fans have never even heard of.

A Stevenson vs. the winner of Bute-Pascal fight will be an interesting fight because it’s guaranteed to be an interesting one for fans. Bute is a highly talented former super middleweight title holder with a difficult southpaw style. Pascal is incredibly fast of hand, and he could give Stevenson a load of troubles if he’s able to make it past the first 10 rounds of the fight.

WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev is also someone that could be facing Stevenson at some point in 2014, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The idea is to have Kovalev make his first defense of his WBO title on the undercard of Stevenson’s fight against Bellew in early 2014.

This in turn will get Canadian fans a glimpse of Kovalev so that they can start getting excited about a future Stevenson vs. Kovalev fight.

A fight between Stevenson and Kovalev will be a huge fight. I don’t blame Stevenson for not wanting to take that fight directly after his defense against Bellew, because Kovalev needs to get some title defenses under his belt to make himself a bigger name before he faces Stevenson.

Right now it would be too premature to make a Stevenson-Kovalev fight. Kovalev needs to get at least 2 title defenses against some well-known contenders before he gets a unification bout against a talent like Stevenson.

It’s too bad that Stevenson can’t get an exception by the World Boxing Council so that he doesn’t have to face Bellew next. It would be better if the WBC allowed Stevenson to bypass the Bellew fight and instead take the winner of the Bute-Pascal fight because it’s a much bigger fight. You don’t want to keep the fans waiting for a huge fight like this.



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