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This weekend at the Colisee
de Quebec in Quebec City, Adonis Stevenson defends his light heavyweight
championship against Tony Bellew. For Stevenson, it represents a landmark of
sorts. Not only is he the headline performer on HBO (10:15 p,m., ET) but he is
now turning into a legitimate draw in a region dominated by Lucian Bute and, to
a lesser degree, Jean Pascal.
When asked what he expects
in terms of attendance this weekend, Yvon Michel of GYM (which promotes
Stevenson) told Maxboxing, It will be between 8-to-10,000 people.”
Once a mere afterthought to
the fans in this province, Stevenson has come a long way in a short period of
time.
“Look,” pointed out Michel, “his
number has increased every fight since he won the title. A year ago, he had
just won the world title eliminator against Donovan George [on October 12th,
2012] and we had a couple thousand people in attendance and even at the time
when Adonis was saying he was going to beat Carl Froch, Lucian Bute and these
guys, everybody was kind of smiling when they were listening to that. But now,
it's completely different. He is a genuine star now. He is a proven champion.
Now, everyone's excited about him.”
As he won the 175-pound
title by stopping Chad Dawson in one round back in June at the Bell Centre in
Montreal, Michel recalls that they had, “about 4,000” in attendance. Stevenson’s
first title defense, a seven-round stoppage over Tavoris Cloud in late
September, had around 9,000 fans in the building.
With his hard-charging,
fan-friendly style, can “Superman” be as popular as Bute was? Not too long ago,
Bute drew huge throngs in Montreal, fighting carefully hand-picked foes. Michel
stated, “I believe so because people here, what they love is champions. They
love winners and they love knockout artists and Adonis is the best knockout
puncher we've ever seen here.”
Stevenson is 22-1 with 19
stoppages to his credit. Since his lone blemish at the hands of spoiler Darnell
Boone in 2010, he has notched nine consecutive KOs (including avenging the
Boone loss in six last March) and he was the first to stop the durable
Cloud. Now the question is, if he gets past the rugged Bellew, is Stevenson
steered toward the winner of the Bute-Pascal showdown (which takes place on
January 18th) or Sergey Kovalev (who faces Ismayl Sillakh on this
show)?
“Bute and Pascal, we don't
know because they have a rematch clause, so that might take awhile to settle
their case to one another,” explained Michel. “Really, what avenue we’d want to
do is to fight Bernard Hopkins but we'll see how possible it is because we're
fighting on HBO and Adonis is very proud of that too. But we'll see after.”
Hopkins, like the rest of
Golden Boy Promotions’ stable is firmly entrenched at rival Showtime. But make
no doubt about it; the match-up fight fans want to see next year is Stevenson
versus Kovalev (should both come out victorious on Saturday night).
Michel continued, “Everything
will depend on the kind of investment that HBO is willing to do. If they are
offering Adonis the same kind of license fee Andre Ward got for his last fight
(which was just over $3 million for his bout against Edwin Rodriguez), he'll
fight anybody.”
Speaking of Ward, shortly
after Stevenson defeated Dawson in the summer, Michel made it clear they would
be willing to do a home-and-home series against Ward with one fight at 168 and
the other at 175. Asked if that offer still stands, Michel answered, “I don't
know. I haven't spoken to Adonis about that for awhile. I don't know the
situation for 168. He was at 173 for the last time but y’ know, the one thing
we have noticed, Adonis has mentioned Ward several times but he's probably the
only name that Ward never mentions. Adonis would fight Andre Ward anytime.
But the question is, would
Stevenson drop to super middleweight like Dawson did? Unlike Dawson, Stevenson
actually has the leverage of selling some tickets and not getting television-packaged
into a disadvantageous position.
“I'm pretty sure Adonis
would say yes if you ask him. But look, looking at what happened in the past
when fighters were trying to go down in weight, we're not too sure. Look at
Chad Dawson; he said it was going to be easy and he was completely drained out [when
he faced Ward in September of 2012]. Same thing, Edwin Rodriguez, he looked
completely drained out for his fight. So after awhile, the body adjusts to a
weight division that you're in. So we're not too sure if it would be a wise
decision to bring Adonis back to ‘68.”
Regardless, as long as he
keeps up his winning ways, the 36-year-old Stevenson will always have Montreal,
Quebec to fall back on. This just might be the best boxing market in North
America. “We have a huge, loyal fan-base. We have corporate sponsors. We have the
resources to develop champions. Taking everything into consideration, I could
say that Montreal and the Quebec province is definitely one of the best places
in the world for a boxing event,” stated Michel.
But that doesn't mean they
are averse to having Stevenson fight elsewhere.
“'It's our goal with Adonis
to travel when the opportunity arises because I believe Adonis has everything
it takes to be a worldwide star and I understand that to do that, he will have
to take a chance and leave and leave the home comforts and fight in the United
States. So we are talking about it; we are going to take the opportunity. It's
not necessarily going to be a business move because there would be more money
here than elsewhere in the United States but he wants to do that. We want to
prove that he can win and he can win in fashion anywhere.
“So it is our goal at one
point shortly to bring him to the States.”
TNR
Here's the latest episode of
“The Next Round” with Gabe Montoya and Yours Truly, in which we review the
return of Manny Pacquiao and preview the HBO doubleheader:
And “TNR” is now available
on iTunes (finally) as part of the “Leave It in the Ring” radio network:
TURKEY FLURRIES
This is surely the end of
Shane Mosley now; right?!...I'm told that because of programming conflicts and
the fact the fight is overseas, HBO will most likely will not air Gennady
Golovkin's bout from Monte Carlo on February 1st ...Anyone going to
get some McRibs for Thanksgiving?...So this whole Jason Kidd experiment as coach
isn't working out so well; is it?.....The Hurricanes better bring their mittens
and earmuffs to Pittsburgh. It's going to be chilly out there. Coldest sporting
event I ever attended was the 2003 game between UM and Pitt at Heinz Field on
Thanksgiving weekend...
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