By Edward Chaykovsky
A few days ago, WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (28-1, 23KOs) made it known that he was gunning for the winner of this Saturday's fight between IBF/WBO/WBA light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev and Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward.
Kovalev (30-0, 26KOs) vs. Ward (30-0, 15KOs) takes place on November 19th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Stevenson is due to return in the first quarter of 2017 with a mandatory defense against Eleider Alvarez (20-0), who takes a tuneup fight next month.
As the lineal world champion at 175-pounds, Stevenson believes the Kovalev-Ward winner will have to go through him to rule the division.
"Well, you know Andre Ward is fighting Sergey Kovalev on November 19, and I would like to fight the winner and unify the title. I’m the lineal [175-pound] champion, so everything has to go through me. I need all of the titles, so it’s time to make that fight happen," Stevenson told Premier Boxing Champions.
"I think Ward versus Kovalev is a 50-50 fight, so I’m not sure who wins. But the fans want to know who the best light heavyweight champion is, and whether it’s Ward or Kovalev, I know I will win that fight."
At the moment, Ward is not even interested in a fight with Stevenson. His entire mental focus is on Kovalev.
But, he does question whether or not Stevenson is capable of making his own career decisions. In the past, when Stevenson was in talks for a potential unification with Kovalev, everything was regulated by his manager/adviser Al Haymon.
"I'm not even interested in Adonis Stevenson right now. Obviously he's not my next opponent, and he's gotta ask Al if he can come out and play. I don't even know if he's available to fight. I'm just being real with you. They got their own thing going on, but that's not even somebody that I'm interested in talking about," Ward said.