Montreal, Canada – When Adonis “Superman” Stevenson entered the floor of the Bell Center in the signature Kronk Gold, the place erupted as we have seen many times before. Montreal loves its boxing and it adores its boxers even more.
As the roars of the crowd transitioned into boos and heckling for defending champion “Bad” Chad Dawson, I couldn’t help but wonder what we would witness if the technician Dawson outboxed Stevenson for twelve rounds in one of his signature snooze-fests.
Unfortunately (or actually more likely fortunately), we never got a chance to see this as the Quebec native blasted Dawson off of a throne that the has controlled for many years with a devastating first round knockout.
Stevenson has become well-known to hard core boxing fans with his heavy hands and his aggressive offensive style. Without any serious competition, however, we were unprepared to usher him into any serious conversation about the best boxers at any weight.
After that commanding and decisive victory last night, have we officially witnessed the arrival of a superstar?
Montreal seems convinced it has, as the place was buzzing long after the ref waved it off and people were already beginning to salivate over a potential super-fight between Stevenson and the winner of Bute-Pascal.
HBO seemed pleased with his performance during the post-fight interview. There’s no question that he’ll attract more casual fans to the network than the comatose Chad Dawson did over his last few fights on the network.
What we can all agree on is that, with a slew of fights to make at or around, the 175 lb. limit, this division just got a whole lot more interesting.
