Mentioned this before when Beterbiev was coming up, he would be a total nightmare matchup for a guy like Ward and Hopkins, as you can't clinch him without ending up paying for it, but they have the chin to make it interesting. Stevenson on the other hand has that equalizer left, but I don't think he would last long enough to land it due to his chin. 70/30 fight
Weirdly, at the time I always felt Stevenson was a bad style for Beterbiev however I felt Beterbiev was the LHW to beat Andre Ward.
Are you on crack? Gvoz put the Pimp in a coma, AB would have put him in the ground. Stevenson would have won some rounds but the end would not have been pretty for him. Those body shot from AB would have done major damage. Plus, AB can take a punch. He’s like a wrecking ball and no version of Adonis finishes the fight on his feet. The most recent version might not finish above ground. Glad they never fought because boxing has enough tragedies.
We need an Undisputed LHW Champion, Universal. I'd like to see if he can pull it off, because there are absolutely zero indications that he's struggling to make the weight. It's also not a foregone conclusion that he beats everyone just yet (in my opinion). Let Beterbiev continue to show the World what he's got as he attempts to collect those other two LHW belts -- apparently, some people still aren't convinced that he's The Man. I remember Usyk having to deal with a (somewhat vaguely) similar situation before he cleaned out Cruiserweight and became Undisputed Champ there.
Yup. I've been championing Beterbiev since 2015 when I saw him with out Cloud and Campillo. I knew back then he was a brutal monster and in reality probably THE #1 guy at LHW head to head. It's been a long time coming, but it's nice to be finally vindicated. I think he'd be a handful at Cruiserweight too and at HW he would have enough movement to befuddle guys like Ruiz, Chisora and the like. Perhaps even stop some of them too.
When Stevenson and Kovalev were both in their primes, I always thought Kovalev would beat Adonis Stevenson rather easily. However, now that both fighters are pretty much at the end of their careers (well, definitely in the case for Stevenson), it's Kovalev that has showed the most weakness. I now think if they fought in their primes, Stevenson would have stopped Kovalev and it would have been brutal. The only reason Adonis showed vulnerability later in his fights is due simply to age. The stamina wasn't there anymore and it cost him against younger fighters. But EVEN with that, he gave those young fighters hell, as evident even with Gvozdyk. Gvozdyk's mistake is that he tried too hard to box Beterbiev. The fighters that had success with Beterbiev early and knocking him down brought the fight to him and countered effectively. Stevenson is a brutal counterpuncher and a fit, young in shape Stevenson would have easily stopped Beterbiev in my opinion. Even the Stevenson that was around 2 years ago would have a good chance to stop Beterbiev within the first 6 rounds. It also needs to be said Stevenson is the bigger puncher here, especially with his left hand. Beterbiev may have thudding power, but Stevenson has shown one punch KO power (against much better opposition) with his left. I don't think Beterbiev would see that particular punch coming and he won't take it well. For all his faults, it was really old age that done Stevenson in, not his boxing ability.