By Keith Idec
Sergey Kovalev couldn’t resist taking a shot Tuesday at longtime light heavyweight rival Adonis Stevenson.
A reporter asked Kovalev on a conference call for his rematch with Andre Ward if Stevenson remains on his “radar.” The former IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion didn’t actually answer that question, presumably because they had so much difficulty making a 175-pound title unification fight when they both were champions.
Kovalev clearly wasn’t impressed, however, with Stevenson’s second-round technical knockout victory over Andrzej Fonfara (29-5, 17 KOs, 1 NC) in their rematch Saturday night in Montreal. Russia’s Kovalev cracked that Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs), the WBC light heavyweight champion from Quebec, is “fighting Uber drivers.”
Before beating Chicago's Fonfara again, the 39-year-old Stevenson’s previous four victories came against Dmitry Sukhotskiy, former WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika, Tommy Karpency and Thomas Williams Jr.
“He is starting to beat his opponents by the second round because he doesn’t wanna fight anybody fresh,” Kovalev said through his manager, Egis Klimas, who translated for him. “So he goes in the ring with the guys he knows he can beat, who he already beat 11 rounds out of 12. Just for example, in the [first] fight, he beat Fonfara 11 rounds out of 12. And he’s fighting him again. He’s a second-round opponent.”
Fonfara knocked down Stevenson in the ninth round of their first fight in May 2014 in Montreal, but Stevenson floored Fonfara twice earlier in that fight and recovered from the knockdown to win a unanimous decision by comfortable margins on all three scorecards (116-109, 115-110, 115-110). Between their two fights, Fonfara also suffered a first-round TKO loss to Joe Smith Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) last June 18 in Chicago.
Their rematch still was expected to be more competitive than what happened Saturday night at Bell Centre.
A left hand by Stevenson sent Fonfara to the canvas in the first round. Fonfara got up, but Stevenson nearly finished him toward the end of the first round.
The bell spared Fonfara another first-round TKO loss, but Stevenson started hurting him early in the second round and Fonfara’s trainer, Virgil Hunter, quickly stepped in to stop their scheduled 12-round fight. Hunter also trains Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), who’ll face Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) in a light heavyweight championship rematch June 17 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas (HBO Pay-Per-View).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.