In many ways, WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis “Superman” Stevenson (26-1, 21 KO) has lost the respect of the boxing community.
Quite honestly, he won’t regain much of it in the next Premier Boxing Champions telecast on Spike against Tommy “Kryptonite” Karpency (25-4-1, 14 KO) Friday night in Toronto, but a loss would be devastating for the champion.
When: Friday, Sept. 11, at 9 p.m. ET
Where: Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto
TV: Spike
Live Stream: Spike.com
Declining Approval Rating
Stevenson has held the title since June 2013, when he knocked out
Chad Dawson. However, since then, Superman has seemingly leaped tall
buildings in a single bound to avoid facing WBA, IBF and WBO champion Sergey Kovalev.
At one point, both men were signed to HBO, but Stevenson bolted for Showtime as
it seemed the two champions were on a collision course. HBO could have
done more to try to keep Stevenson under its banner, but it didn’t
appear as if Stevenson was in any hurry to face the scary Russian power
puncher.
Meanwhile, Stevenson is jumping at the chance to take on guys like Karpency.
That’s not meant as a knock on the 29-year-old southpaw from Adah, Pennsylvania. Karpency is a gamer who will give maximum effort in the ring. He’s even going the extra mile in his efforts to help promote the fight.
Per Premier Boxing Champions, Karpency took on the moniker “Kryptonite” to combat Stevenson’s “Superman” nickname.
It makes the marquee look better, but not necessarily the matchup in
the ring. For what it’s worth, Stevenson told fans to prepare for a
knockout in this interview with Corey Erdman of The Fight Network:
Tested, but Still Unknown
Most fight fans probably hadn’t heard much about Karpency before it was announced that he would be taking on Stevenson. Bleacher Report’s Kevin McRae and WildpunchBoxing seemed less than enthused about Karpency in this bout:
The odd thing is that Karpency has taken on several known fighters, including Dawson, whom he beat by split decision in 2014.
Karpency has also faced Karo Murat, Andrzej Fonfara and Nathan Cleverly. All three of those fights resulted in defeats for Karpency. How could a fighter face fairly well-known competition and still not be more widely known or respected?
Karpency isn’t a huge puncher, and that could explain
why he hasn’t gained more notoriety or respect. It could also explain
why Team Stevenson felt he was the right guy to fight.
Prediction
Contrary to popular opinion, Karpency isn’t a stiff.
When he moves, his feet are decent, and he has above-average hand speed.
You can see all of his win over Dawson in the video below:
Against Dawson, he stood right in front of his man too frequently.
Dawson isn’t known as a hard puncher, so that strategy wasn’t as
ill-advised as it would be against a guy like Stevenson. Dawson also
looks like a shell of himself since he went down to 168 pounds and got
throttled by Andre Ward in 2012.
There aren’t many fighters in the sport with heavier hands than the
37-year-old champion. We’ve yet to see a fighter who could consistently
eat Stevenson’s shots without wilting.
Karpency seems to like to stand in the pocket and fire
counter power shots. He works behind his jab but can be a little
predictable with his one-two combinations. Both of those tendencies are a
bad look for a guy with marginal power against Stevenson.
Because Stevenson’s level of competition hasn’t exactly been up to
fight fans’ standards, it’s easy to forget how good he is in the ring.
At one point, he was seen as a one-dimensional slugger. He disproved
that concept when he dismantled former champion Tavoris Cloud in 2013.
Cloud quit on the stool, but the submission was brought on by
Stevenson’s superior boxing skills. Stevenson’s weakness is his chin. He
was knocked out by journeyman slugger Darnell Boone in 2010 and floored
by Fonfara in 2014.
Karpency doesn’t have Boone or Fonfara‘s power, and that will ultimately be his undoing. Stevenson’s jab and power will wear Karpency down and lead to an eighth-round TKO win for the WBC champion.
