Adonis Stevenson: Sergey Kovalev is terrible, would be easy work

Adonis Stevenson wasn't impressed by Sergey Kovalev's seventh round knockout victory over Cedric Agnew last night on HBO, and tells RingTV.com that the WBO light heavyweight titleholder would be "easy work" if they were to ever fight, which of course they will not for the foreseeable future.

"Kovalev can't fight. He can not fight. He couldn't even really take a punch from Agnew. The difference between me and Agnew is that I can box and I can punch. Kovalev has not fought a Chad Dawson, who can box, and he's not fought a Tavoris Cloud, who can punch. So Kovalev is terrible. He's lucky that he's never fought a guy who can punch in the ring. Believe me, Bernard Hopkins would beat him, and he would beat him easily. I'm telling you, Sergey Kovalev is just an average fighter."

Stevenson (23-1, 20 KO) knocked out Dawson in 76 seconds last June, followed in September with a totally one-sided win over former IBF titleholder Cloud, which ended after seven rounds. Last week, the WBC and Ring Magazine champ caused quite a stir when he "defected" from HBO to Showtime, citing a better offer. There also is the chance that he could face Bernard Hopkins by the end of the year, which all things being equal, is a bigger fight than Stevenson-Kovalev would be, simply in terms of name value and what have you.

Stevenson's reaction here isn't entirely unprovoked or anything, as Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KO) called him "a piece of shit" after his fight last night, and also recently referred to Stevenson as a "coward" (as well as a "piece of shit").