By Dan Ambrose: Last night, WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (27-1, 22 KOs) trounced #9 WBC Tommy Karpency (25-5-1, 14 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout in a mismatch at the Ricoh Coliseum, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was a fight that probably should have been never made, but unfortunately the match-making for Stevenson has not been all that great since he won the WBC title in 2013 after beating Chad Dawson.

This was Stevenson’s sixth title defense, of those six fights, he’s only faced one quality opponent in Andrzej Fonfara. The rest of the guys Stevenson has faced have been overmatched fighters like Karpency.

After the fight, Stevenson said he wants to fight IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Whether Stevenson is serious is unknown. Judging by the weak opposition that Stevenson has faced in the last two years, I doubt that he wants any part of Kovalev.

“Come on, Kovalev – it’s time to fight for the unified title,” Stevenson said after the fight.

Kovalev replied back on his Twitter, saying “I got your call Adonis “Piece of [expletive]” Chickenson. I’m ready to fight and kick your [expletive] already long time ago!!! Let’s do it ASAP👊🏼 Adonis “Piece of [expletive]” Chickenson 🐥got his next win today with very easy opponent. Congrats you CHICKEN 🐓!!!”

In the best possible world, Stevenson’s adviser Al Haymon would agree to match the 37-year-old Stevenson up with Kovalev so that the boxing world could finally see this fight. But the reality is we’re probably not going to see a fight between these two fighters anytime soon if ever.

Stevenson has had chances to fight Kovalev, Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal in the past, but he failed to do so. There’s nothing that I believe has changed in that regard. Stevenson is older, and clearly slower than he was a few years ago. He’s still winning due to his punching power advantage and the soft opposition he’s been facing, but his time is running out.

Even with the weak opponents that Stevenson is being continually fed, he’s eventually going to lose to one of them due to his advancing age. Stevenson just turned 37, and he’s considerably slower than he was several years ago.

I suspect he’ll continue to slow down in the next couple of years, and his weak opposition will eventually catch up to him and defeat him. As far as Stevenson ever facing the likes of Kovalev, I don’t see it happening. I think Stevenson just name drops Kovalev’s name to get attention from the boxing fans and the media, and to keep himself from being marginalized and seen as a paper champion.

Stevenson only holds one title at 175 compared to Kovalev’s three times. It’s hard not to be seen as a paper champion when you only hold one time, and the other champion holds three. What hurts Stevenson even more is the weak opposition he’s being matched against.

There’s no reason that Stevenson should have been matched against Karpency, Tavoris Cloud, Dmitry Sukhotsky, Sakio Bika and Tony Bellew. Those were really poor choices for Stevenson. He should have been fighting the likes of Kovalev, Jean Pascal, Eleider Alvarez, Artur Beterbiev, Sullivan Barrera, Edwin Rodriguez and Yunieski Gonzalez.