DAZZLING DRAW
Adonis Stevenson and Badou Jack can’t be separated in a barnburner
ADOU JACK promised to expose Adonis Stevenson as an old, protected champion with a big left hand but limited skills. Stevenson said all he would need was to land one clean punch. From the moment it was announced, their fight for Stevenson’s WBC light-heavyweight belt proved challenging to handicappers and looked to be a stalemate. In the end, it was exactly that. Thankfully, their majority draw proved reminiscent of such light-heavyweight epics as Mathew Saad Muhammad’s 14th-round stoppage of Yaqui Lopez. While perhaps not quite that good, Stevenson and Jack provided the opener to what now has the makings of their own mythical rivalry.
Inevitable calls for a rematch were heard moments after judges Guido Cavalleri and Eric Marlinski tabled identical scores of 114-114. The lone dissenter, Jesse Reyes, marginally favoured Jack, 115-113.
Judges often get it wrong. But this was not one of those times. It was that close.
With bracing ebb and flow, the fight silenced a growing chorus against Stevenson, who accused the 40-year-old of scrupulously avoiding the division’s A-listers in eight defences of his WBC crown spread across a near-five-year reign. Former WBC supermiddleweight champ Jack, 34, was making his second appearance since moving up to 175lbs.
Stevenson predicted a knockout, but he clearly trained for a long night, and took the opening three rounds with an unmerciful body assault that left Jack wary of his power and holding back his attack. By mid-rounds, Jack was finding a home for the lead right, and a stinging jab. But Stevenson controlled most of the action, bullying his opponent in clinches and depleting Jack with a steady volume of heavy shots to cement his lead.
With Stevenson looking on track for a KO, Jack suddenly opened up his attack in the seventh, landing multiple combinations, including a right hook that left the champion stunned and seeking to hold.
By the next round, Stevenson was bleeding heavily from the nose and looked exhausted during a timeout that saw referee Ian John Lewis reprimand Jack for repeated, albeit questionable, low blows.
“Shots on the beltline are not a low blow”, Jack’s promoter, Floyd Mayweather, protested afterwards.
Undeterred, Jack would continue to land rapid-fire combinations in the ninth – snapping Stevenson’s head back with a sharp uppercut – and get the better of the toeto-toe action in the 10th, until Stevenson landed a sharp right hook to the body that had the challenger retreating on quaking legs.
Stevenson may have touched the canvas against Andrzej Fonfara and Darnell Boone in his lone loss; likewise Jack against James Degale and during his defeat to Derek
‘ANOTHER FIVE OR 10 SECONDS AND STEVENSON WOULD HAVE BEEN OUT’
Edwards. But any lingering questions about either fighter’s chin had to be dismissed as they unloaded ferocious punches going into the final rounds.
After both men traded with abandon in a rousing 11th, the fight was arguably up for grabs in the 12th as Stevenson scored heavy shots to the body early. Jack took the round, however, after landing a series of hard punches at close range that had Stevenson’s legs wobbling as he fought to stay upright at the final bell.
“He almost walked to the wrong corner [at the end]. Another five or 10 seconds and he would have been out,” said Jack after having suffered an unthinkable third draw in his past four fights. (A draw against Lucian Bute was subsequently converted to a DQ win for Jack after Bute tested positive for a banned substance.) “It was a close fight, but I thought I won it 7-5 [in rounds]. No judge had him winning.”
Mayweather concurred with the 7-5 score, saying “I don’t think we have a choice” when talk turned to the possibility of a rematch.
Jack, a native of Stockholm, Sweden, but now living in Las Vegas, said he would prefer a return engagement in either the US or Europe.
Stevenson insisted he was still the champ, and a rematch would have to take place once more in Canada. But there may be some subtext to his lack of compromise. Born in Haiti, Stevenson moved to Montreal at the age of five, and was jailed as a teenager for his involvement in a gang that prostituted young women and abusively culled their earnings. Although not confirmed, there is speculation that Stevenson’s criminal record now precludes him from travelling to the US.
That same tainted history appeared to have inexplicably landed his fight against Jack at the Air Canada Centre with a mere four weeks to organise and promote the event, after it was originally slated for Montreal. With a limited command of English, Stevenson is virtually unknown in Canada outside of Quebec. Yet Quebecois fans, specifically in Montreal where boxing enjoys enormous popularity, have never fully embraced Stevenson, his enduring tenure as a world champion evidently providing little redemption for his illicit past.
Still, a respectable 4,728 showed up in Toronto, excited to witness a world-class fight normally reserved for Las Vegas or New York.
“A potential rematch? Sure, it would be a great fight to see again, but it has to be in Canada,” said Yvon Michel, Stevenson’s promoter.
Regardless of where it takes place, Stevenson was unequivocal about wanting to fight Jack again: “I know Badou Jack now. [The rematch] will be a different thing.”
THE VERDICT Bring on the sequel!