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Light heavyweight titleholders Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson are on a fantasy collision course that may eventually become reality. Or not. The two fighters both have interim bouts right now, with Kovalev facing Cedric Agnew on March 29, and Stevenson taking on Andrzej Fonfara on May 24.
"Right now I have my match against Cedric Agnew, and that's the only thing I'm focusing on. And Stevenson, I can only say that if he refuses to fight with me [after I beat Agnew], then he is a coward and not a world champion."
Adonis Stevenson's reply (via Facebook):
"First of all, lets make it clear! No one is scare of your sorry ass!! I fight for a living and in order to live in this world we need money! So i fight for money! If the money is right I will be more then glad to come give you a good ass whooping in the ring. Beside having power you have nothing special! Your defense is terrible and it wont be to hard to find your big ugly head with that long ass chin! They can hype your name in the boxing world as much as they want to but at the end of the day is how much you are getting paid that matter! While I will fight for millions you will keep fighting for thousand and keep begging me to fight you so your broke ass can make some money! Skill pay the bills! The more skill you have the more you get pay. So as I can see you don't have to much of it because your ass is still broke."
That seems like a real overreaction, if you ask me.
Stevenson recently inked with Al Haymon, which gives him further leverage, in addition to the fact that he's a ticket-seller in Quebec. HBO wants the fight badly, but will now have to deal with Haymon if they're going to get it, and it's difficult to say what that will mean. It's possible that Stevenson is looking more at Bernard Hopkins (who faces Beibut Shumenov on April 19) than Kovalev right now after signing with Haymon. Or maybe not. Who knows? The important thing is that skill pay the bills.