Adonis Stevenson finishes Dmitry Sukhotsky in fifth round

Adonis "Superman" Stevenson took care of business tonight on Showtime, closing his year with a TKO-5 win over fringe contender Dmitry Sukhotsky to retain his WBC light heavyweight title, as well as the lineal championship.

Stevenson (25-1, 21 KO) dropped Sukhotsky in the second round, and then three more times in the fifth, finishing things with a wicked straight left hand to stop the bout at 2:38 of round five. The 37-year-old Haitian, now based in Montreal, was too strong for Sukhotsky (22-3, 16 KO), who had never been stopped before in his pro career.

The fight went more or less as expected, as Sukhotsky never figured to be a serious challenge to Stevenson. But Stevenson did hear some boos from the Quebec crowd for sort of cruising and dancing around the ring, but when he turned it up, it was quick work.

"I just used my speed and movement. I know I've got the power, the knockout's going to come. So I don't want to force the knockout. My trainer tells me that, too. This is boxing," he told Showtime's Jim Gray after the fight.

When asked about a fight with Sergey Kovalev, who is set to face Jean Pascal on March 14, Stevenson remained defiant in his position.

"Kovalev has to come to me. I'm the big champion. I'm the RING Magazine champion, I beat the man. I'm the man at light heavyweight. They have to come to me," he said. "I'll let Al Haymon and Groupe Yvon Michel take care of that. Me, my job is to go in the ring and knock everybody out."

Stevenson landed 80 of 272 (29%) total punches, including 43% of his power shots (51/120), compared to just 23/136 (17%) of total shots landed by Sukhotsky.