BoxingSpecialist2
Mentor
Andrzej Fonfara vs. Adonis Stevenson is in discussions for April 12.
This fight would be in Montreal and televised by HBO.
Fonfara has been improving, he's better than Bellew and has a better chance of beating Stevenson.
Wow, what an absolute cop-out by Stevenson and Groupe Yvon Michel (his promoter). Talk about taking the easy way out of things.
It's obvious that Stevenson and his team have no interest whatsoever in facing their best challenge; Sergey Kovalev (who is, as Max Kellerman stated, unquestionably is the biggest threat in the division and the consensus best possible opponent at light heavyweight, moreover, he has a world title) and are actively dodging the fight.
This is a crystal-clear duck and a blatant case of a fighter's team simply avoiding a perceived risk.
I question if Stevenson will ever fight Kovalev. He may continue to dodge the fight, forever.
Stevenson-Bellew and Kovalev-Sillakh both drew very impressive TV ratings for HBO, as I recall, they were the 3rd highest watched fights of the year. So, unquestionably there is more money to be made fighting Kovalev than Fonfara, who comparatively speaking is an unknown.
Stevenson has used the ridiculous-to-begin-with argument that Kovalev has not faced good enough opponents to warrant the fight, but Kovalev has fought and beaten much better than Fonfara. So, Stevenson is completely and inherently contradicting himself if this is true.
In fairness, boxing is a business, and from a business standpoint, the goal is to make money while incurring the least amount of risk possible. That's fine and on some level to be expected. But don't sit here and try and say Stevenson is fighting the best, he's not. His team is trying to protect their investment and they're scared of losing to Kovalev, so they are avoiding that fight as much as possible.
Larry Merchant, a boxing personality that I have a very high respect for, recently stated in an interview that it is up to the media and boxing fan's to voice their opinions in order to get Kovalev/Stevenson to happen. He is bang on with that statement. The boxing media should have put a lot more pressure on GYM and Main Events to make the fight happen.
As for the fight... Fonfara is a live underdog and certainly has a puncher's chance, but I think he most likely loses this one by decision or late stoppage... Hopefully he can prove me wrong.
Last edited: