A Salute To Adonis Stevenson

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By Rich “Lite It Up” Lopez

We all heard the tragic news this past weekend about Adonis Stevenson in his title fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Stevenson was knocked out in the 11th round and it didn’t end well. Stevenson suffered a brain injury and as of now remains in a medically induced coma. Now we pray that Stevenson can make a nice recovery and enjoy the rest of his life with his family.

Adonis Stevenson, who goes by the nickname of Superman, ended with a record of 29-2-1, with 24 KO’s. He is originally from Haiti, but fought out of Quebec, Canada. In his early childhood, Stevenson was involved with gangs as a teenager. He served 18 months in prison and once he was out, he decided to turn his life around and got involved in boxing. He had a small amateur career and then he became professional in 2006. He fought professionally for twelve years and was trained by the late Emanuel Steward. Stevenson had a very late start to his career and he started out in the super middleweight division. He was 29 years old which is late for boxing, but he managed to be successful, which is rare in the sport. The undefeated southpaw suffered his first loss in 2010 with a surprising TKO loss to journeymen Darnell Boone.

From there, Superman came back with six straight stoppages due to his devastating punching power. As we approached 2013, this would be the year for Superman and he moved up to the light heavyweight division. He started off the year avenging his only loss by stopping Darnell Boone. He was an underdog, when he knocked out Chad Dawson in round one and won the WBC Light Heavyweight title. He followed this up in the same year with stoppages over Tavoris Cloud and Tony Bellew. This achievement would earn Stevenson the Ring Magazine’s Fighter of the Year honors. Emanuel Steward did say before his passing that Stevenson would become a world champion and he called it right.

To sum it up, Stevenson was a world champion for five years and had a good streak. At the end, he made nine defenses of the WBC title and was the oldest world champion. In addition, he also has wins over Sakio Bika, Andrzej Fonfara, and Thomas Williams, JR. The southpaw was known as one of the most fearsome punchers in the division. Sure, he faced criticism for not fighting Sergey Kovalev while both fighters were in their prime. It was a superfight that did not happen. Also, Stevenson got some slack for his inactivity and maybe some of his opposition he was facing. Give the man credit though, Superman was winning and always looking for the knockout in all his fights. Even in his draw with Badou Jack and loss to Gvozdyk, Stevenson put a great effort in those fights. One thing is for sure though, he was never in a dull fight and he always went for the knockout.

In closing, we wish for the best for Stevenson and hope he is back on his feet soon. He was a good champion and he made his adopted country of Canada proud. Get well champ!

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