By Ben Jacobs
Colombia’s Eleider Álvarez (18-0, 10 KOs) is currently preparing for his WBC world title eliminator against Isaac Chilemba (24-2-2, 10 KOs) in his country of residence, Canada, alongside his trainer Marc Ramsey. Álvarez, ranked in the top ten by three of the four major sanctioning bodies could face WBC champion Adonis Stevenson in his next fight should he emerge with his hand raised on November 28. The light heavyweight contender spoke to BoxingScene.com via telephone from his training camp to discuss his next possible step as well as two other fights of interest.
“One of the options next is fighting for the WBC title, this is a final eliminator,” Eleider explained.
“First of all, I’m thinking about this fight with Chilemba but then I can think about the champion, Adonis Stevenson. I could be fighting him if I win and that’s what a lot of the locals here in Canada are waiting for.
“Every boxer has his positive side and his defects. Stevenson is a strong boxer - his punching power is one of his biggest attributes but I have to think about winning against Chilemba first.”
On the same night in Quebec, Londoner James DeGale makes the first defence of his IBF super middleweight title against another well-known fighter based in Canada, Lucian Bute.
“The fight between DeGale and Bute is going to be excellent,” Álvarez enthused.
“DeGale is young, he comes here with hunger, he comes to defend his title. I knew about him from the Olympic Games in 2008 when he won the gold medal. He’s very technical, I don’t know how hard he hits but I know he is skilled. Bute is, how can I say, resurrecting himself. He wants to makes his fans here in Canada happy. It will be hard for Bute but he wants to show he can still be champion and that will make things hard for DeGale.”
A man that Álvarez knows very well is Jean Pascal who recently announced that he will be training with Freddie Roach for his likely rematch with Sergey Kovalev early next year.
“I have trained with Pascal since I arrived in Canada in 2009 and he has a lot of strengths. He wants a rematch with Kovalev because he feels he is able to beat him and rectify and improve on what he did in the first fight. He has to improve a lot of things and he’s doing it - that’s why he wants this rematch.”
