hes come a long way
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Best I Faced: Adonis Stevenson
Stevenson connects during his thrilling encounter with Badou Jack in 2018. (Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
09
Nov
by Anson Wainwright
Adonis Stevenson ripped up the script in the summer of 2013 when, as the underdog, he knocked out Chad Dawson with one punch in the first round to annex the Ring and WBC light heavyweight championship. It was selected in our readers poll as the Knockout of the Year. Stevenson went on to make nine successful defenses over a five-and-a-half-year period in the 2010s.
Stevenson was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 22, 1977.
“I didn’t meet my father; he died when my mother was pregnant with me,” Stevenson told The Ring. “When I was a kid, I always said, ‘Why has my father died?’ It was very difficult. You grow up without your father. My mom was my mother and father. She did everything for me. She worked a lot; she’s a fighter.”
In search of a better life, Stevenson’s mother moved the family to Canada when Adonis was 7 years old. It was quite a change for the young Haitian.
“The weather was a shock,” he said. “People were telling me the winter was cold, but me, in my head, I was thinking, ‘That’s nothing. That’s easy work for me.’ I had to get a jacket, hat. I had to put boots on my feet. It was cold. I was like, ‘How do human beings live here?'”
But live he did — and he was never far from trouble.
“I didn’t finish school,” said Stevenson. “I was in trouble on the streets. I was a street guy. I was in a gang but didn’t stay long; there was one boss but I don’t like people to control me.”
Stevenson battles Samoa’s Warren Fuavailili during their middleweight semifinal bout at the Commonwealth Games in 2006. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)
Stevenson worked in a factory but hustled for money on the streets, becoming more involved in criminal activities.
“There was one guy who manipulated me; everything he said, I’d do. He controlled me,” said Stevenson. “They said I was a pimp. He came to me and got the girls to give me the money, and I gave him the money. He used me. After I look back, I was naive.”
His nefarious actions eventually caught up with him, and Stevenson went to Bordeaux Prison in Montreal for assault, issuing threats and working with prostitutes. He served 18 months of a four-year sentence.
“I saw a lot of people who were in the prison, they’d go out and come back,” he recalled. “I asked one of the officers: ‘I saw him a couple of days ago; he was in jail, he came out and he’s come back. How come?’ The security guard laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, you will come back. They always come back.’ I looked at him and said, ‘When I go out, I’m never going to come back again — never.’ He laughed.”
With steely determination, Stevenson took up boxing when he got out of prison in 2001. He won the Quebec championship in 2004 and then the Canadian national title in 2005 and 2006. He represented Canada at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and won silver in 2006. His performance prompted renowned promoter Yvon Michel to sign him. Stevenson turned professional at the relatively late age of 29 in September 2006.
The super middleweight knockout artist progressed quickly, winning the Canadian title in his 10th outing. However, after going 13-0 with 10 KOs — seven of them in the opening round — he made his American debut fighting for Lou DiBella and was stopped in the second round by dangerous journeyman Darnell Boone.
“I underestimated him and [didn’t take] him serious,” admitted Stevenson. “He shocked me. It was hard. I got written off. I had to convince Yvon. He said OK and gave me a second chance.”
Stevenson returned and knocked out once-beaten Derek Edwards (KO 3) and the stylistically challenging Aaron Pryor Jr. (TKO 9).
In 2012, he became one of the great Emanuel Steward’s pupils. The two quickly bonded and Steward helped Stevenson move to the next level. The the power-punching southpaw dispatched Steward protege Jesus Gonzales (KO 1) and world-rated Noe Gonzalez (TKO 2), then stopped Don “Da Bomb” George (TKO 12) in an IBF eliminator.
When Steward passed away in the fall of 2012, Stevenson worked with his late trainer’s nephew, SugarHill.
Stevenson says he was impressed by Andrzej Fonfara’s intelligence in the ring. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
Although he was Carl Froch’s mandatory challenger, Stevenson lined up a fight with Ring/WBC champion Chad Dawson. But first, he decided he needed to get the Boone loss out of his system for good.
“[Boone] was talking a lot, talking shyt, saying, ‘He’s going to fight for a world title but doesn’t have time to fight me,'” said Stevenson, who brutally gained revenge by knocking Boone out in the sixth round. “I didn’t need to, but I did. I said to Yvon, ‘Please, I have to fight him. He’s talking so much shyt about me. Any fight I have, he’ll be like, ‘Adonis is fighting him? Ha! I beat Adonis.”
“Yvon said, ‘Fighting this guy doesn’t mean anything, and you’re going to risk it? You have everything to lose.’ It was my honor. I told him I would fight for free. He got me once, but he’s not getting me a second time.”
That led to Stevenson facing Dawson in Montreal in June 2013.
“I was supposed to be easy for him,” said Stevenson, laughing. “I practiced that kind of punch thousands of times. He’s southpaw and I’m southpaw; when you throw the left hand, it will be fire. I tried one time to get the distance, and the second time I got it.
“Superman” rounded out the year with successful title defenses over former titleholder Tavoris Cloud (TKO 7) and future cruiserweight titlist Tony Bellew (TKO 6) to close out 2013. On the strength of those accomplishments, Stevenson was named The Ring’s 2013 Fighter of The Year.
The Bellew fight was on HBO as part of a doubleheader with WBO beltholder Sergey Kovalev. It was hoped they would meet in the new year. However, Stevenson made a business decision to sign with the influential Al Haymon and moved to Showtime.
Stevenson held off the late charge of Andrzej Fonfara (UD 12) in 2014, but critics began to complain about him facing the likes of Dmitry Sukhotskiy (KO 5) and Tommy Karpency (TKO 3).
“People always have something to say when it comes to my opposition,” he said. “Boxing, as you know, is not an easy sport at the professional level, and everyone has their different talents. I tend to not pay attention to what people have to say.”
Stevenson went a long way toward silencing those detractors when he engaged with two-division titleholder Badou Jack in a thrill-a-minute war in May 2018.
“I think it was an incredible fight,” said Stevenson, who had to settle for a 12-round draw. “When he stayed on his feet [after I hurt him with a left hook to the body in the fifth round], I was like, ‘It will be a long night.’
“People aren’t used to seeing me going 12 rounds – I usually go for the KO. This time, people really got to see my endurance and resilience and the fact that I just don’t give up.”
Stevenson then met his mandatory challenger, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, in Quebec City in December 2018. It was a contest that ended with Stevenson going down under a barrage of punches in the 11th round.
“I was dominating the fight,” he said. “I lost. But it’s boxing.
“I go to the bathroom and had a shower and I get out; I was feeling like my head was not good. I was not comfortable. I felt a pain in my head. I went to the hospital, and then I had the operation.”
Stevenson had suffered a severe brain injury and spent three weeks in an induced coma. When he finally woke up, he found himself at the start of a long and difficult road.
“I had to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to eat. I had to learn how to read and write. I was like a baby,” said Stevenson, who estimates he’s now about 80 percent of what he was prior to the injury.
In 2019, Stevenson was honored at the WBC convention and named the WBC Champion of Hope.
Stevenson, now 45, has five children and lives in Laval, Canada.
He graciously took time to speak to The Ring about the best he fought in 10 key categories.
BEST JAB
Badou Jack: “He gets the jab out, the timing; he’s patient. It was a swift jab.”
BEST DEFENSE
Jack: “He had a good defense, too. He can block the punch.”
BEST HANDSPEED
Chad Dawson: “I could see his jab was very quick.”
BEST FOOTWORK
Oleksandr Gvozdyk: “He moved around the ring very well.”
SMARTEST
Andrzej Fonfara: “When I fought the first fight, he let me punch him, he kept blocking and was waiting for a good moment. He was very wise, waiting for his moment. When his moment came, he caught me and I realized everything he was doing was to wear me down. My energy was going and he knew it. He saw the opportunity, he caught me and [I went down, then] I got up.”
STRONGEST
Fonfara: “He’s big and very strong physically. He walked around at 200 pounds.”
BEST PUNCHER
Dawson: “I could feel his power, and he also disrespected me. I said in my mind, ‘I have to finish him quick,’ before he got his rhythm.”
BEST CHIN
Sakio Bika: “I don’t think there was a boxer who knocked him out. I hit him clean, he went on the floor and he got up. He had a good defense, but he had a good chin. When you punched him in the head you felt the punch in your hands. He’s got a chin!”
BEST BOXING SKILLS
“I think Tony Bellew had good skills. He had long arms, good jab. Aaron Pryor Jr., he’s tall — this guy is 10 feet (laughs) and he’s got skills.”
BEST OVERALL
Jack: “He was a two-weight world champion. He brought the best out in me; we had a great fight.”
Best I Faced: Adonis Stevenson - The Ring
Former light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson breaks down his best opponents by category.
www.ringtv.com
you can't go from the 2013 he had to fighting the comp he did afterwards
Stephen Fulton On Inoue: “If You Take Away That Power, Would You Still Consider Him As Good?”
BY HANS THEMISTODE
Published Thu Nov 10, 2022, 06:23 AM EST
With each concussive knockout, Naoya Inoue has continued on his quest to aggregate every world title at 118 pounds. Following three successive stoppage victories, the Japanese star sought to make amends for his 2019 showdown against Nonito Donaire. Although the 29-year-old eked out a close but clear unanimous decision victory in their first meeting, he violently and mercilessly ended their rivalry in their eventual rematch.
Eager to prove that their initial bout was nothing more than an off night, Inoue (23-0, 20 KOs) floored the future first ballot Hall of Famer in the opening round before finishing him off in the second. As three world titles remain safely underneath his arm, Inoue has been considered by many as arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Ultimately, however, Stephen Fulton, the current WBC and WBO trinket holder at 122 pounds, tips his cap to Inoue in approval of his overall skills. Nevertheless, the Philadelphia native, unlike many, isn’t willing to name him the best fighter around.
“He’s good,” said Fulton to BoxingScene.com. “But I wouldn't say the best in the world.”
Inoue’s next opportunity to impress will come at the tail end of the year when he takes on WBO bantamweight champion, Paul Butler.
Fulton (21-0, 8 KOs) is now looking at a move in weight, four-pounds north to the featherweight division, for a rematch with Brandon Figueroa. On Thursday, the 28-year-old received approval to face Figueroa for the WBC's interim-title.
Inoue is viewed as a gargantuan favorite in the upcoming fight with Butler. Should Inoue achieve his undisputed title dreams, he could look to invade Fulton’s outgoing division of 122-pounds.
Up until this point, Inoue has shown a propensity to not only outbox his foes but suddenly end their night in brutal fashion. Cognizant of his mind-numbing power, Fulton is of the belief that if Inoue's power was somewhat neutralized, the rest of his game is likely to fall apart.
“He is good but if you take away that power, would you still consider him as good?”
BY HANS THEMISTODE
Published Thu Nov 10, 2022, 06:23 AM EST
With each concussive knockout, Naoya Inoue has continued on his quest to aggregate every world title at 118 pounds. Following three successive stoppage victories, the Japanese star sought to make amends for his 2019 showdown against Nonito Donaire. Although the 29-year-old eked out a close but clear unanimous decision victory in their first meeting, he violently and mercilessly ended their rivalry in their eventual rematch.
Eager to prove that their initial bout was nothing more than an off night, Inoue (23-0, 20 KOs) floored the future first ballot Hall of Famer in the opening round before finishing him off in the second. As three world titles remain safely underneath his arm, Inoue has been considered by many as arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Ultimately, however, Stephen Fulton, the current WBC and WBO trinket holder at 122 pounds, tips his cap to Inoue in approval of his overall skills. Nevertheless, the Philadelphia native, unlike many, isn’t willing to name him the best fighter around.
“He’s good,” said Fulton to BoxingScene.com. “But I wouldn't say the best in the world.”
Inoue’s next opportunity to impress will come at the tail end of the year when he takes on WBO bantamweight champion, Paul Butler.
Fulton (21-0, 8 KOs) is now looking at a move in weight, four-pounds north to the featherweight division, for a rematch with Brandon Figueroa. On Thursday, the 28-year-old received approval to face Figueroa for the WBC's interim-title.
Inoue is viewed as a gargantuan favorite in the upcoming fight with Butler. Should Inoue achieve his undisputed title dreams, he could look to invade Fulton’s outgoing division of 122-pounds.
Up until this point, Inoue has shown a propensity to not only outbox his foes but suddenly end their night in brutal fashion. Cognizant of his mind-numbing power, Fulton is of the belief that if Inoue's power was somewhat neutralized, the rest of his game is likely to fall apart.
“He is good but if you take away that power, would you still consider him as good?”
Felix Alvarado fight date, start time. The main card is set to get underway at 2pm ET / 7pm GMT with the main event ringwalks scheduled for 5pm ET in the U.S., and 10pm GMT in the UK.
i checked the probellum emails i get...havent seen anything on them...dont they have a website where they air fights?
reading this article and Bud is just simply a delusional and weird dude, Mikey is the one that called out Spence and asked for the fight, and then signed with Matchroom for more paper. Nobody was thinking about Mikey vs ESJ until Mikey asked for it and put his "I see something" statement out there. Bud got some shyt going on in his head, no wonder Porter called him the most stubborn man in all of sports.
“Like I said before, Al Is a cool dude,” Crawford said during a recent interview on The DAZN Boxing Show. “I like talking to him, but at the same time Errol Spence is his guy. That’s who he’s going to go to bat for. When you’re with him, he’s going to go through tooth and nail with you. If you’re not with him, you’re on the wrong side.”
A question was then posed to Crawford as to why he simply could not link up with Haymon and become “one of his guys”, if only on a fight-by-fight basis, in similar fashion to, say, the now-retired multiple-division champion Mikey Garcia.
“What’s stopping you with being one of his guys?” co-host Barak Bess then asked Crawford. “Even if it’s fight-by-fight basis — Mikey Garcia and other guys who did that — what’s stopping you from being that and being treated better and getting guarantees?”
Garcia, a native of Southern California and for a period regarded as one of the top boxers in the sport, was a longtime client of Haymon. Garcia famously had a legal battle with Top Rank and Haymon aided Garcia during that time. Garcia and Top Rank eventually settled, at which point Garcia started to box under the PBC umbrella. Key fights for Garcia include main event tussles with Adrien Broner, Sergey Lipinets, Robert Easter Jr., and, of course, Spence.
But Crawford responded by saying that he feels Garcia was simply used by Haymon as fodder for Spence, and is evidence, to Crawford, that Garcia was not properly looked after. In 2019, Garcia valiantly moved up a few divisions to face Spence in a welterweight match at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but the intriguing contest was hardly competitive, with Spence out boxing the much smaller Garcia with ease over 12 rounds. That was Garcia’s last fight with PBC. He finished out his career with two fights with a rival outfit, Eddie Hearn's Matchroom, including his last fight, a shocking loss to Sandor Martin in October 2021.
For Crawford, that is a sign that Haymon did not have Garcia's interests in mind, at least relative to Spence.
“When you look at Mikey Garcia, Mikey Garcia was never his guy,” Crawford explained. “Mikey Garcia was just used to catapult Errol Spence to a different level, by using Mikey Garcia and all his accomplishments to elevate Errol Spence from where he was to now.”
“But you gotta think it was all tailored made for him to build him up, give him a couple fights, and ultimately him and Spence was going to fight,” Crawford said. “Yeah, we’ll throw you a bone here and there just to get you excited, and you know, believing in us, but after the Errol Spence fight where was Mikey Garcia?”
“Like I said before, Al Is a cool dude,” Crawford said during a recent interview on The DAZN Boxing Show. “I like talking to him, but at the same time Errol Spence is his guy. That’s who he’s going to go to bat for. When you’re with him, he’s going to go through tooth and nail with you. If you’re not with him, you’re on the wrong side.”
A question was then posed to Crawford as to why he simply could not link up with Haymon and become “one of his guys”, if only on a fight-by-fight basis, in similar fashion to, say, the now-retired multiple-division champion Mikey Garcia.
“What’s stopping you with being one of his guys?” co-host Barak Bess then asked Crawford. “Even if it’s fight-by-fight basis — Mikey Garcia and other guys who did that — what’s stopping you from being that and being treated better and getting guarantees?”
Garcia, a native of Southern California and for a period regarded as one of the top boxers in the sport, was a longtime client of Haymon. Garcia famously had a legal battle with Top Rank and Haymon aided Garcia during that time. Garcia and Top Rank eventually settled, at which point Garcia started to box under the PBC umbrella. Key fights for Garcia include main event tussles with Adrien Broner, Sergey Lipinets, Robert Easter Jr., and, of course, Spence.
But Crawford responded by saying that he feels Garcia was simply used by Haymon as fodder for Spence, and is evidence, to Crawford, that Garcia was not properly looked after. In 2019, Garcia valiantly moved up a few divisions to face Spence in a welterweight match at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but the intriguing contest was hardly competitive, with Spence out boxing the much smaller Garcia with ease over 12 rounds. That was Garcia’s last fight with PBC. He finished out his career with two fights with a rival outfit, Eddie Hearn's Matchroom, including his last fight, a shocking loss to Sandor Martin in October 2021.
For Crawford, that is a sign that Haymon did not have Garcia's interests in mind, at least relative to Spence.
“When you look at Mikey Garcia, Mikey Garcia was never his guy,” Crawford explained. “Mikey Garcia was just used to catapult Errol Spence to a different level, by using Mikey Garcia and all his accomplishments to elevate Errol Spence from where he was to now.”
“But you gotta think it was all tailored made for him to build him up, give him a couple fights, and ultimately him and Spence was going to fight,” Crawford said. “Yeah, we’ll throw you a bone here and there just to get you excited, and you know, believing in us, but after the Errol Spence fight where was Mikey Garcia?”
Dallas' 4 Eva
Superstar
But Mikey left PBC because Hearn offered him $7m guaranteed to fight Jessie Vargas. They didn’t freeze him out, he left on his own. Lol
Also Crawford would love to have a Mikey scalp on his resume. He sounds mad cause he didn't get the opportunity to take the 0.
he got his head split open by one of Conor's flunkies in bareknuckle. that shyt is for washed up dudes lol @ Paulie thinking Haney is going to entertain that backwater nonsense.
Bud a weirdo just like his fan club lmfao
reservoirdogs
Superstar
PBC wants to use Cruz some more, possibly a Tank rematch while Top Rank can easily force the WBO route instead... won't happenI'm actually looking forward to that one. Depending on how that fight goes(and how you feel about Tank) you gonna be looking one of two ways after that fight eitheror
.
Wouldn't be shocked at all if it doesn't happen though, Top Rank fighter and a PBC fighter where the Top Rank fighter is the big name, Arum may try to have Stevenson go the WBO route.