Canadian Adonis Stevenson sets date for next WBC light heavyweight defence

Adonis Stevenson (Photo from Stevenson’s official Instagram account)

MONTREAL – Canadian Adonis Stevenson will defend his World Boxing Council title on Sept. 11 at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto.

An opponent has yet to be named for Stevenson’s sixth defense of the belt he won with a first-round knockout of Chad Dawson in 2013. Details of the bout and the fight card are to be announced later this week, a spokesman for promoter Yvon Michel said.

Stevenson (26-1), a power-punching southpaw currently living in Blainville, Que., is coming off a win by unanimous decision over Sakio Bika on April 4. His last two bouts have been in Quebec City and he has fought mostly in Quebec, although he has trained at the Kronk Gym in Detroit in recent years.

The 37-year-old tweeted on July 15 that his next bout would be in Toronto, adding that “Canada is a special place.” His promoter confirmed the Toronto date on Monday.

It will be a busy season for Canadian fighters.

Former IBF super-middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-2) returns from a 19-month layoff to face unheralded Italian Andrea Di Luisa (17-2) in a 10-rounder on Aug. 15 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Montreal-based Colombian Eleider Alvarez (17-0) will defend a minor WBC light heavyweight belt in the co-feature against Isidro Prieto (24-0-3).

Bute’s last bout was a 12-round loss to fellow Montreal fighter Jean Pascal in January 2014.

There will be big interest in a clash of middleweight boxers as David Lemieux (34-2, 31 knockouts) of Montreal put his newly won IBF title against WBA champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) of Kazakhstan on Oct. 17 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The bout will be an HBO pay-per-view event.

Talks are underway for Montreal-based Artur Beterbiev (9-0, 9 KOs) to face WBA, WBO and IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (31-0-1) in an all-Russian bout Nov. 28 in Moscow. If the fight is finalized, Beterbiev would be a heavy underdog even though he beat the hard-hitting Kovalev twice as an amateur.

A Stevenson-Kovalev title unification bout has yet to be arranged mainly because Kovalev is committed to fighting on HBO while Sevenson, who is managed by Al Haymon, is linked to rival Showtime. Beterbiev is also with Haymon, but Michel said he would be free to fight on HBO because it would be a first shot at a world title.

Kovalev destroyed Nadjib Mohammedi in a title defence Saturday in Las Vegas, with Pascal nipping Yunieski Gonzalez by unanimous decision in a co-feature some felt the Cuban won.