"Superman" Stevenson stops Sukhotsky in five
WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis "Superman" Stevenson (25-1, 21 KOs) stopped challenger Dmitry “The Hunter” Sukhotskiy (22-3, 16 KOs) in the fifth round on Friday night at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City, Canada.
Stevenson dropped Sukhotsky four times in the fight. It was the first time Sukhotsky has been stopped.
Stevenson, a native of Haiti, who now resides in Quebec, dominated from start to finish, flooring Sukhotsky with a big left hand in the second round.
Sukhotsky hardly threw any punches and did little to make a fight of it before Stevenson finished the job in the fifth.
Southpaw Stevenson dropped Sukhotsky with a straight left and the Russian was soon down again moments later. But he got up and seemed to recover until another vicious straight left ended the bout when referee Michael Griffin waved it off at 2:42 of the round with Sukhotsky on his back under the bottom rope.
Stevenson was making the fourth successful defence of his belt but at 175-pound he is in need of better opposition.
WBA/IBF/WBO champion Sergey Kovalev defends his belts aganst Jean Pascal in March and Stevenson could fight the winner next.
The possibility of a unification fight with Kovalev, who beat former champion Bernard Hopkins by a lopsided points decision in November, looks the more likely with Pascal given little chance of beating the undefeated Russian.
However, over the past 12 months, while fellow titlist Kovalev and Hopkins fought each other, Stevenson settled for facing Andrzej Fonfara and Sukhotsky.
And after the fight Stevenson said: "You have to come to me. I'm the main light heavyweight. So they have to come to me.
"I'll let Al Haymon and (promoter) Groupe Yvon Michel take care of that. My job is to go to the ring and knock everybody out."