By Luke Furman

Now that a fight with Bernard Hopkins is out the window, promoter Yvon Michel of GYM will explore the possibility of a Canadian super-fight between WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20KOs) and top contender Jean Pascal (29-2-1, 17KOs). Stevenson will return on September 27th from the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Pascal is the top contender to Stevenson's title.

It's not clear if Michel will look to place that bout on the September date or Stevenson's next fight at the end of the year.

There is also talk that Stevenson will go after WBA 'regular' light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer of Germany.

Michel had been in talks with Golden Boy Promotions and Showtime to match Stevenson against Hopkins, but BoxingScene.com announced on Friday that Hopkins will stake his WBA/IBF titles against WBO champion Sergey Kovalev on an HBO televised date in November. 

Stevenson turned his back on a deal with HBO to jump over to Showtime for a fight with Hopkins. Michel claims Hopkins was offered more money to face Stevenson, but he demanded a bigger slice of Showtime's license fee. According to Michel, Hopkins will make less money against Kovalev and the hard-punching Russian is not making a lot either.

"I must admit we are a little surprised by this turn of events. We felt that something was up since the departure of [ex-Golden Boy CEO] Richard Schaefer. We saw that there was a connection between Golden Boy and HBO for some time. If [Hopkins] had accepted the offer [for Stevenson], he would have pocketed more money than the amount he's getting against Kovalev. With respect to Kovalev, he will collect a lot less money than Hopkins for this fight. It's a bit hard to understand," Michel told the Quebec Journal.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.