By Jim Dower: WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis “Superman” Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs) and #1 WBC mandatory Eleider “Storm” Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) are negotiating a fight for December in Quebec, according to Dan Rafael. This is a fight that boxing fans have been waiting for and it finally looks like it’s about to happen.
“We are looking for a December date in Quebec City,” said Canadian promoter Yvon Mchel to ESPN.com.
Alvarez has got to be feeling relieved now that he’s about to get his title shot. Now it’s up to him to capitalize on the opportunity by beating Stevenson if possible.
There’s been talk that Stevenson will be facing Badou Jack soon. Jack, 33, will need to wait until Stevenson takes on Alvarez first. If Stevenson beats Alvarez, then Jack will get the fight with him. Alvarez is on the same level as Badou in the talent department.
Stevenson should be able to get past both guys without any problems. Where Stevenson could have some issues is when he fights Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Artur Beterbiev and Sullivan Barrera. Those are all very good fighters that have some power and boxing skills that will force Stevenson to dig deep to win.
If the fight gets made, it would be the 40-year-old Stevenson’s first mandatory title defense since his win over Tony Bellew 4 years ago on 2013. The fact that the World Boxing Council has slowed Stevenson to go 4 years in between defending against his mandatory challengers tells you a little bit about the sanctioning body.
It’s obviously not a good deal for the contenders that have been waiting for 4 years to try and get title shot against Stevenson. It just goes to show you that if a sanctioning body isn’t going to force a world champion to fight against their No.1 ranking challengers, then it’s not going to get done.
Alvarez, 33, recently beat Jean Pascal by a 12-round majority decision on June 3 in Montreal, Canada. Before that, Alvarez defeated Lucian Bute, Norbert Dabrowski, Robert Berridge, Issac Chilemba, Isidro Ranoni Prieto and Anatolity Dudchenko. Alvarez looks to be a pretty good fighter, but he doesn’t appear to be on the same level as the southpaw Stevenson is.
It’s good for Stevenson, 40, to finally get the fight out of the way against Alvarez while he’s still young enough to win. Stevenson is just not aging. His chronological age is 40, but he’s fighting more he’s in his prime. There’s no sign of letup in Stevenson yet.
Stevenson has held his WBC title for the last 4 years since beating Chad Dawson by a 1st round knockout on June 8, 2013. Stevenson has since defended his WBC title successfully 8 times in beating these fighters:
• Tavoris Cloud
• Tony Bellew
• Andrzej Fonfara – x 2
• Dmitry Sukhotsky
• Sakio Bika
• Tommy Karpency
• Thomas Williams Jr.
Stevenson didn’t need to fight Fonfara a second time, but he did anyway. The Boxing fans would have preferred if Stevenson had taken a tougher fight against the likes of Andre Ward, Sergey Kovalev, Dmitry Bivol, Gvozdyk or Beterbiev. Stevenson doesn’t take a lot of risks with his career. He fights voluntary defenses until he’s ordered to fight his mandatory challenger.