Showtime reaches deal for Adonis Stevenson vs. Andrzej Fonfara fight

By Boxing News - 03/25/2014 - Comments

stevenson22By Dan Ambrose: HBO chose not to renegotiate a contract with WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (23-1, 20 KO’s), who is fighting Andrzej Fonfara (25-2, 15 KO’s) on May 4th at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. HBO had the option of taking this fight and keeping Stevenson with their network, but they passed up on the deal, according to Yahoo Sports. It’s possible that the asking price was too much to keep the 36-year-old Stevenson, who is now being managed by Al Haymon.

The loss of Stevenson from HBO means boxing fans won’t get a chance to see Stevenson vs. Sergey Kovalev fight each other, as Kovalev is with HBO. Showtime vice president of sports Stephen Espinosa said to Yahoo “There is a structure which allows us to continue for multiple fights beyond that fight.” The fight he’s talking about is the Fonfara fight, which honestly isn’t that big of a deal. That’s not a fight that will bring in big ratings no matter which network televises it.

I can kind of understand why HBO might not have been interested in renegotiating Stevenson’s contract given the less than appealing Fonfara mismatch. For fans who’ve seen Fonfara fight, they’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that a fight between Fonfara and Stevenson is a terrible fight. It’s basically Stevenson vs. Tony Bellew all over again, but probably even worse than that because Fonfara doesn’t box as well as Bellew and he doesn’t have his power.

He’s a tall fighter who stands straight up and gets hit a lot, and who has faced mediocre opposition through much of his career. I can definitely see why HBO might not have been excited about putting that fight on after Stevenson’s last mismatch against Bellew. The Stevenson vs. Chad Dawson fight was a good match-up that ended in spectacular fashion. But the Stevenson-Bellew was horrible, and the Stevenson vs. Fonfara fight is another poor one on paper.

Having Stevenson with Showtime potentially opens up a possible fight between Stevenson and IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins. I still have my doubts that Hopkins will ever agree to face Stevenson, even though he no longer has the excuse that he fights on a different network. Hopkins said recently in the past that he wants to fight him, but I would be very surprised if Hopkins actually does that.

As bad as Hopkins looked in his last fight against Karo Murat, I don’t see him agreeing to fight Stevenson. If Hopkins never faces Stevenson, then it won’t be much of a great deal in having Stevenson on Showtime, to be honest. Andre Ward won’t fight him, and he can’t fight Gennady Golovkin because he’s on HBO.

So, Showtime will have a guy who will likely spend the next 1-3 years defending his title against guys like Fonfara, Isaac Chilemba, Denis Grachev and possible Lucian Bute. Jean Pascal has shown zero interest in fighting Stevenson, so you can forget that fight. Bute was recently easily beaten by Pascal, so I don’t see a Stevenson-Bute fight interesting fans. Without Stevenson fighting Kovalev or Hopkins, it’s really not even worth it for Showtime to have signed him. Espinoza should have figured that out ahead of time and saved the money in signing him.



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