After a four year, eight defense run as the WBC light heavyweight titlist, Adonis Stevenson may finally have to fight a real top light heavyweight this fall. According to Yvon Mitchell, promoter of both fighters, Adonis Stevenson is expected to be mandated to fight Eleider Alvarez and the fight will take place in the fall. For real this time, maybe.
It really has been remarkable how Adonis Stevenson (29-1, 14 KOs) has been able to avoid top competition as a major organization titleholder. Since winning his belt in June of 2013 over lineal champion Chad Dawson by shocking first round knockout, Stevenson has defended against Tavoris Cloud coming off a loss, made a pretty good defense against then fringe top light heavyweight Tony Bellew, and then promptly proceeded to fight not contenders like Andrzej Fonfara, Dmitry Sukhotskiy, Tommy Karpency, and more over his most recent seven fights.
Stevenson’s most recent fight was his worst yet. After he was originally mandated to fight Eleider Alvarez, Adonis elected to pay Alvarez a step aside fee so he could take an exceptionally pointless rematch with Andrzej Fonfara instead. From a fight fan’s perspective, it was an infuriating decision that encapsulated what has been viewed wrong with the Haitian turned Montreal based star’s entire reign.
Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) is also a Montreal transplant with a growing fanbase in that quality fight city after immigrating from Colombia. He has helped his star with consecutive wins over the last generation of Montreal stars in a stoppage of Lucian Bute and a majority that should have been unanimous decision win over Jean Pascal. He is a talented fighter who I have ranked in the top five of the division.
For that reason, I will remain skeptical that this fight takes place at all until it actually does. Adonis Stevenson has not shown a willingness to fight other top fighters. He could choose to drop his belt and/or retire rather than take on someone he could conceivably lose to. On paper with both fighters having the same home base and promoter, this is an exceptionally easy fight to make. In reality, we will see.
