Stevenson knocked Bika down twice officially and once unofficially,but I never got the feeling that Bika was ever in true danger of being stopped.
Of course,the fight everyone wants in the 175 pound division is Stevenson vs WBA/IBF champion Sergey Kovalev.
I'm not sure Stevenson wants that bout and he wasn't even questioned about Kovalev in a lousy post-fight interview by CBS questioner Brent Stover.
I still think that despite a purse bid to force this bout that it isn't going to happen unless the PBC wins the purse bid.
If anyone else wins it,I believe Stevenson will hand the title back to the WBC before he fights on another promoter/network.
I believe if Al Haymon would have Peter Quillin turn down a career high purse for a fight that he'd likely win (vs Matt Korobov),you have to think that he would do the same with Stevenson for a fight that he is likely to lose.
Stevenson is a strong puncher,but I believe his power is mildly overrated.
Not that Stevenson doesn't hit hard,but power comes from delivery and it seems to me that Stevenson often has trouble hitting his target and as a result isn't as big of knockout guy as he could be.
Power after all is the act of delivering the highest payload as quickly as possible and Stevenson misses way too much for me,although if he hits you,the potential is there to take you out.
The real star on the day and the man that we think will give Sergey Kovalev a much rougher time than Stevenson continued his roll to the top as Artur Beterbiev just destroyed Gabriel Campillo in four rounds.
Campillo,a former champion,had been a solid fighter and the only fighter to dispatch him was Kovalev in the fight that brought Kovalev to the boxing world's attention.
Add Beterbiev to that list as he knocked Campillo to the mat with the first shot he landed in round one and showed a strong killer instinct by finishing him off in the fourth round with a shot that caught Campillo as he was falling into the ropes to finish the bout.
Something tells me that we will see Beterbiev vs Stevenson before we see Kovalev vs Stevenson and with the questionable chin of Stevenson,that same something tells me we will be wishing for another bout involving Kovalev-vs Artur Beterbiev.
Onto the CBS version of PBC and I was less than impressed.
Kevin Harlan was awful on blow by blow reminding me of Screaming Gus Johnson's days on Showtime (That's not good) and Brent Stover's interview of Adonis Stevenson after the fight was beyond bad.
Paulie Malignaggi did his usual strong work and Virgil Hunter was much better than I expected him to be as the color commentators.
PBC continues to remind me of the 1980's Vince McMahon WWF takeover of the wrestling world as only Paulie Malignaggi even mentioned Sergey Kovalev,the lousy post-fight interview and the refusal again to show the WBC belt on television.
I think that the CBS version of PBC is clearly the weakest of the three networks thus far.
The Boxing Challenge moved into a tie at 33 as I added four points to R.L. Malpica's two on the day.
We each added a point for the Adonis Stevenson win and R.L. earned another one for the Artur Beterbiev win,but I received three points for Beterbiev's win,via knockout and calling the correct round.....
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