Adonis Stevenson: I'm the only one who can defeat Kovalev

Adonis Stevenson has a scheduled fight with Sukhotsky on Friday, which really is a fight that absolutely nobody wanted to see. Though we had some signs that the fight we actually wanted to take place (Stevenson-Kovalev) was going to happen earlier this year, the fight abruptly fell apart. Stevenson has since been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, but it hasn't seemed to phase him whatsoever.

"Nothing is easy," said Stevenson, "but I know that I'm the only guy that can beat Sergey Kovalev. I will fight him in 2015."

"Look, Pascal and Hopkins got to fight Kovalev; so what? I know Kovalev still has to prove that he's the best in the division and the only way that he can do that is by fighting me. When I go to fight Kovalev, like Hopkins and Pascal, he's gonna want more money," said Stevenson.

Well - Duh! Of course he's trying to prove he's the best in the division, why do you think he's been trying to make a fight with you? The problem with this logic is that it cuts both ways, Adonis. How can you possibly prove you're the best light-heavyweight, as you often like to mention, without facing Kovalev either? I'm sure you wouldn't want to answer that though, so with that said, let's go ahead and change subjects so you can tell us why the Pascal fight didn't happen either...

"I told Pascal that he was only a contender and he only deserved 30 percent and that's why the fight didn't happen. So he went with Kovalev because maybe he's going to get more out of him. But I mean, look at Kovalev. He's a world champion and he's got three titles but I bet that he's only making about $500,000 a fight. Come on, man."

"You know what? I made over $1 million for my last fight but I am not going to tell you exactly how much I made. That's because I've got Al Haymon, who is a good manager, and he works everything out for me. It's because I've got the best manager in Al Haymon," said Stevenson.

"Like I've said, Pascal is fighting Kovalev but he's not going to make more money fighting Kovalev than he is fighting me. The money is with me. Kovalev can fight Hopkins; he can fight Pascal or he can fight anybody else that he wants in the light heavyweight division. But he can only make the big money by fighting me, Adonis Stevenson. I'm Superman. I am the king of the light heavyweights."

"Just take a look at all of my fights and you know what I'm about. No one else knocked out Chad Dawson in 76 seconds. I did that. I'm the first guy to stop Tavoris Cloud. I beat two champions back-to-back. So I'm not scared of any of those guys. The problem is not about being scared. The problem is that in the negotiations, they want more money, so that's why the fights didn't happen. Do they want to fight? Good," said Stevenson.

Great - apparently Adonis has taken a page out of the Mayweather playbook and prefers to talk about how much money he can earn, being the cash cow of the division, and so forth. Unfortunately none of that is going to really resonate with the fans who are becoming increasingly disenchanted with Adonis. Just fight Kovalev or shut up about it altogether...No? You have more to say about Kovalev and money? Let's have it.

"I know that everyone wants the fight to happen between me and Kovalev. I know that Kovalev is going to beat Pascal and I know that I'm going to beat Sukhotsky. So then, after that, we can fight. And if Kovalev does fight me, then he's going to make huge money."

So that was a perfectly worthwhile statement, especially that last part (*sigh*). Anyways, Kovalev's promoter, Kathy Duva, offers up a couple of her thoughts on Adonis, particularly by mentioning that she thinks he's more of a pretender than contender in the division.

"To be perfectly honest. Somebody's gonna beat Stevenson," said Duva. "In my view, he is a fringe contender who could lose to absolutely anyone."

This was a bit overstated, and I'd expect as much given the source. I certainly think Adonis is much more than just a fringe contender, but he starting to earn some of these perceived slights.