Adonis Stevenson: I’m ready to fight Badou Jack

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: WBC World light heavyweight champion Adonis “Superman” Stevenson says he’s now ready to fight WBA champion Badou Jack or IBF/WBA/WBO 175 lb. champion Andre “SOG” Ward in a unification fight. Stevenson says it doesn’t matter which of the two he fights. He wants to add their titles to his collection.

Jack, 33, is the guy that Stevenson is mentioning only because he recently called him out after his 5th round knockout win over WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly on August 26 in their fight in the co-feature bout on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor card at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A unification match would save Stevenson and Jack a lot of trouble of having to defend against their dangerous mandatory challengers. Stevenson is supposed to defend against his #1 WBC mandatory Eleider Alvarez next. Jack has to defend against #1 WBA Dmitry Bivol. That’s an even more difficult fight than the one Stevenson has against Alvarez.

Jack could lose to Bivol quite easily. Beating the light hitting Cleverly wasn’t a problem for Jack, because he wasn’t a threat to beating him like Bivol. But it’s going to be a much tougher test for Jack to try and get past Bivol. The best thing that Jack can do is take the risky payday fight against Stevenson for good money rather than fight Bivol for less money and lose to him.

“It was a good performance. Jack is a great fighter,” said Stevenson to Premier Boxing Champions about Jack’s 5th round TKO win over Nathan Cleverly on August 26. ”So now he’s calling me out. I’m ready for a big fight to unify the titles. Andre Ward or him, I’m ready. It doesn’t matter to me. It would be a pleasure for me to fight in a unification and get another title in my collection,” said Stevenson.

The hardcore boxing fans would like to see Stevenson and Jack fight each other. It’s not a huge fight that the U.S casual boxing fans will get excited about. Stevenson vs. Jack is not a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor type of fight. Stevenson-Jack is strictly a fight that the hardcore fans will be eager to see.

”When I win all the titles, it’s a possibility, but now I want to win all the titles,” said Stevenson when asked if he’d be interested in moving up to the cruiserweight division. ”It is my goal and I’m focused on that.”

The 39-year-old Stevenson is likely too small and old to move up to cruiserweight at this point in his career. Those guys are a lot bigger than Stevenson, and they have better power than him. It would be a really bad mistake on Stevenson’s part if he were to fight the top cruiserweights like Murat Gassiev, Oleksandr Usyk, Denis Lebedev and Mairis Briedis. Those guys know how to handle fighters with big power, and they’d likely be able to take Stevenson’s best power shots without any problems. The problems for Stevenson is he would have to take their big punches, and he’d have some serious issues with that.