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WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson poses at a weigh-in on June 2, 2017 in Montreal.The Canadian Press

Adonis Stevenson says Toronto is the place to be for sports in Canada.

The World Boxing Council light-heavyweight champion from Blainville, Que., is to make his ninth title defence at the Air Canada Centre on May 19 in a bout his promoter Yvon Michel had hoped to stage in Montreal.

Stevenson said it was not his decision where the fight would take place and that his manager Al Haymon insisted it be in Toronto.

“I’m happy to fight in Toronto,” Stevenson said on Tuesday in a telephone interview. “It’s a big city and it’s big for sports.

“You have the Raptors, soccer, hockey. All the sports there are successful. It’s the place to be. But they don’t have a lot of boxing. There’s a lot of boxing shows in Montreal. This is an opportunity to show them boxing. [U.S. specialty channel] Showtime is coming. It’s good for Toronto too.”

However, the boxers arrived for the fight announcement to find the city in mourning for the victims of an incident that saw a driver ram his van into pedestrians on a city sidewalk – not the ideal time to be promoting a sports event.

“It’s very sad,” Stevenson said. “I don’t believe it happened in Canada. My condolences to all the families.”

Stevenson (29-1) already made a title defence at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto in 2015 against unheralded Tommy Karpency, but this one promises to be a bigger fight against a respected opponent in Jack (22-1-2), a Swedish former two-time world champion who fights for Mayweather Promotions out of Las Vegas.

Jack is the former WBC super-middleweight champion who moved up one weight class to become World Boxing Association light-heavyweight champ with a win over Briton Nathan Cleverly in August. However, he vacated that title rather than face mandatory challenger Dmitry Bivol and turned his attention to Stevenson.

The power-punching Stevenson will be seeking a 25th career knockout. The 40-year-old’s weapon of choice is a devastating left hand, which he used to knock out Chad Dawson in only 76 seconds to win the WBC belt in 2013.

Since then he has been criticized for ducking tough opponents in favour of easier competition such as in his most recent bout, a second-round stoppage of Poland’s Andrzej Fonfara in Montreal in June. He was once famously called Adonis (Chickenson) by former three-belt champion Sergey (Krusher) Kovalev in a bid to goad him into a showdown.

Stevenson insists that it is his manager who picks his opponents and that he is willing to take on anyone, anywhere.

But he has also managed to avoid making mandatory defences against the WBC’s top-ranked contender, which are supposed to happen once a year. Stevenson’s last mandatory was against Tony Bellew in 2013.

Since 2015, his mandatory challenger was Eleider Alvarez, a Colombian based in Montreal who is also promoted by Michel. Alvarez repeatedly agreed to step aside so the champion could face other opponents, but threatened to put his foot down when the Jack fight was announced, saying he has waited long enough for a chance to win a world title and the big money that goes with it.

That problem was solved last week when 34-year-old Alvarez (23-0) surrendered his WBC status in order to take on Kovalev (32-2-1) this summer. The Russian now holds only the World Boxing Organization belt.

Meanwhile, Michel has been under pressure dealing with the Stevenson clan. When he announced the January the fight would be in Montreal, Stevenson called it “fake news” on Twitter. The two sides looked to be in a standoff.

This week, a compromise deal was struck – the bout is to be in Toronto, but with the same undercard fighters from Michel’s stable including talented light-middleweight Mikael Zewski (30-1) of Trois-Rivieres, Que.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and Toronto promoter Lee Baxter are also involved in staging the fight card.

“It is the first title fight that the venue will host,” MLSE senior vice-president Wayne Zronik said in a statement. “We’ve worked with this group before to bring world-class boxing to the city and are excited for the return of championship boxing to Toronto.”

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