by David P. Greisman

It’s been more than 10 months since Adonis Stevenson last fought. His previous appearance was a quick three-round technical knockout of Tommy Karpency in September 2015.

His next one? A defense of his light heavyweight world title and the lineal 175-pound championship on July 29 against Thomas Williams Jr. in Quebec City.

That’s a lengthy stretch, but the 38-year-old Stevenson (27-1, 22 KOs) says it won’t affect him negatively.

“Last year, I think I did three or four fights. Now this year I’m going to fight two times, so my layoff will be good for me,” Stevenson said on a July 18 media conference call. “It’s not a problem. I was in the gym every day. The layoff is not a problem for me because I’m always training. … I need to recover because in 2015 I fight like three or four times. Everything is good now. I’m ready to fight. I don’t have injury, so I’m ready now. Sometimes it’s good to recover, to take a break and come back stronger.”

Stevenson actually only fought twice in 2015: against Sakio Bika in April and then against Karpency. He also fought twice in 2014. It was 2013 that was quite active for him, with four appearances, including the first-round technical knockout of Chad Dawson that made Stevenson the new champion, plus two televised defenses.

“I know he’s hungry,” Stevenson said of Williams. “But I am the champ and I’m hungry too. I know he’ll be ready, so I’ll be ready for this fight.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com