By Ben Jacobs
The light heavyweight division continues to be one of the most prominent in the entire sport, not least with last Saturday’s super fight between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev which divided opinion across the board. Furthermore, there is still WBC champion Adonis Stevenson and rising puncher Artur Beterbiev at 175lbs, another Russian who defeated Kovalev twice in the amateurs.
There is also undefeated WBC number one ranked contender Eleider Álvarez (20-0, 10 KOs) who will fight Stevenson next year should he emerge unscathed from his bout on December 10 at the Montreal Casino in Quebec, Canada.
Álvarez took some time from his training camp to discuss the fight and his potential showdown with Stevenson in a BoxingScene.com interview.
“I have this fight on December 10, it won’t be easy, he’s a guy with a good record and he’ll be prepared,” Eleider said, speaking about Norbert Dabrowski (19-5-1, 7 KOs).
“He’ll want to ruin my party but I prepare hard, whoever the opponent is and, the idea is to fight Adonis next year, maybe around February or March.”
The Colombian, who also holds the Silver belt, heads the bill where he fought his first three bouts in his debut year of 2009 and is content to go back to the same venue before the planned showdown with Stevenson.
“The casino is small but I’m happy because I fought there at the beginning of my career and I think it’s a good place to fight to finish the year off. I can say that I’ve been frustrated at times when a date has been put to me and then they say no, but that frustration passes quickly. I know my time will come.”
Adonis Stevenson’s last bout was in July, a thrilling contest with the always entertaining Thomas Williams Jr in which he won with a fourth round knockout of the American. Eleider believes that by taking one more bout before facing the 39-year-old, the extra activity could give him an edge.
“Adonis has only fought once this year, same as me so far, so we decided to have another fight to stay active,” he explained.
“I wanted to go directly to Adonis even though my team said no, but in the end I thought it was a good idea as well to have this fight.
“It’s important to fight a southpaw just like Adonis is. The fight he had was good, Thomas Williams was on the floor early but he came back and he hurt Adonis a little bit. But Thomas wanted to show his power just a bit too much. Boxing is about intelligence as well and you have to use your head a bit.”
Eleider also waded in on the controversy surrounding the Ward-Kovalev fight while expanding his views on the current state of the division he competes in.
“I thought that it should have been a draw. The first six rounds basically went to Kovalev. I said in an interview that if Kovalev didn’t knock him out early then Ward would win on points, and that’s what happened, but for me in reality, that fight deserved to be a draw.
“In the last five years or so this division has become the hardest of all, it’s so competitive. All the top 20 are tough, be they young or experienced guys. Bernard Hopkins is now fighting again and he has beaten a lot of fighters younger than him using his experience. He could win despite his age, the only fights he lost recently were against guys who were physically much bigger and stronger than him like Chad Dawson and Kovalev. I haven’t seen much of Joe Smith Jr but I heard he’s a good fighter.”
