A boxing card during the waning days of 2013 has set up a potential Fight of the Year for 2014. On Saturday, WBC/Ring magazine light-heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson and WBO belt-holder Sergey Kovalev defended their titles against respectable challengers in a twin bill at the Colisee de Quebec in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Stevenson and Kovalev are both knockout artists, and neither man disappointed on Saturday, as Stevenson stopped Britain?s Tony Bellew in six rounds while Kovalev starched Ismael Sillakh in a mere two heats.
Bellew, who had previously lost only to countryman Nathan Cleverly, who was in turn annihilated by Kovalev, engaged in a lot of trash-talking in the time leading up to the fight, referring to Stevenson as a ?midget? among other things. But when the pair got into the ring, Bellew didn?t walk the walk. Instead, he sprinted the sprint as he turned what was supposed to be a boxing match into a track meet.
However, Stevenson ? who has displayed a great deal of tactical diversity of late ? kept his cool and eventually hunted his prey down after arguably winning all five of the previous rounds. After decking Bellew with a left, Stevenson swarmed his hapless opponent, prompting the referee to step in before serious damage could occur. If Bellew?s pre-fight taunts got to Stevenson, the Haitian-Canadian was able to channel his resentment into effective aggression, as Joe Frazier did when he fought Muhammad Ali.
Kovalev, who looked like a force of nature when he brutally beat down Cleverly earlier this year, demonstrated his ferocity yet again as he blew Sillakh out at the 52-second mark of the second round. Sillakh was at best a fringe contender, and his futile effort against Kovalev showed that Ismael cannot run as fast as Bellew.
Usually, when two title-holders appear on the same card against different opponents, the idea is to showcase them in anticipation of a future encounter between the top-billed twosome. Kovalev and Stevenson came through with flying colors on Saturday. In the best of all worlds, these two crowd-pleasing warriors would face each other in their next fight. And the best venue for that bout other than Las Vegas would be in Quebec ? either Quebec City or Montreal. The province has become the hotbed of boxing in Canada. The rest of the country is, at best, a cold cot.
Stevenson is on a roll, having kayoed, in succession, reigning champ Chad Dawson, former champ Tavoris Cloud, and now Bellew. It would be understandable if he chose to take a couple of easier fights to fatten his bank account before going up against the formidable Kovalev. But at 36, the late-blooming Stevenson is not getting any younger, and he is not the ageless Bernard Hopkins (whom Stevenson should avoid unless he thinks he needs a boxing lesson).
The Stevenson and Kovalev camps ought to be in negotiations right now for a showdown between their tigers. It could be not only the Fight of the Year ? it could well be the Fight of the Decade.
