Adonis Stevenson: Ward Beat Kovalev, I Hope We Unify Titles

By Edward Chaykovsky

WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (28-1, 23 KOs) would like to unify with newly crowned WBA, WBO, IBF champion Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), who captured the belts in late November with a close decision over Sergey Kovalev (30-1, 26 KOs).

There is a lot of controversy over Ward's decision, that saw him get off the floor in the second round to win the contest by a single point - 114-113 on all three official cards. Kovalev exercised an immediate rematch clause, which should see the two of them fight again in the next few months.

Stevenson will return to the ring in April, when he faces his month's final WBC eliminator between Lucian Bute and Eleider Alvarez. If the winner of that contest is unable to go forward, the WBC will potentially order Stevenson to face the highest ranked available contender.

Stevenson saw Ward as the winner of November's fight. He felt it was close, but saw the undefeated Olympian as the winner.

“It was a good fight, a really close fight, and I think Andre Ward won it,” said Stevenson to Boxing News. “I want to unify the title. If he [Ward] wants to unify the title, and I don’t think Andre Ward is scared about that, then we’re going to do that. But whoever comes, I’m ready.”

If they both come away with victories in their upcoming assignments, Stevenson has no problem with leaving Canada to fight Ward in the United States - which is a good thing, because it's very unlikely that Ward would travel to Canada to fight Stevenson.

"We have never had any problem with traveling. It's for a world championship and we have fought a number of fights overseas. If the opportunity presented itself and it made more financial sense to fight in New Zealand opposed to America we would be the first ones to get on the plane," Stevenson said.