Middleweight Curtis “Showtime” Stevens has an Aug. 3 date with Saul Roman, which will take place at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. The event will be televised on NBC Sports.

In Roman (37-9, 31 knockouts), who turned 33 earlier this month, Stevens (24-3, 17 KOs) will try to demonstrate his “explosive power” in his new weight class after having been among the hardest punchers in the super middleweight ranks until the start of this year.

Stevens’ goal is to get beyond Roman, who will be after his fourth straight victory and his third consecutive stoppage win, for the bigger fights against 160 pounders such as RING middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, and the other three beltholders Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, and  Daniel Geale.

“Anything is realistic. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing, which is winning… I have Saul Roman coming up next Saturday. So I have to get done with him,” Stevens said of Roman, whose last loss was a seventh-round knockout against Vanes Martirosyan in June of 2011.

“But I’m ready right now. I’ll fight a champion right now. The question is, do they want to give me a shot? It ain’t necessarily am I ready, it’s are they ready and willing to give me a shot? I’m high-risk. Don’t nobody want to get in there and get hit by me, I don’t believe.”

Geale (29-1, 15 KOs) has a defense against Darren Barker (25-1, 16KOs) on Aug. 17, while Martinez was last in the ring for April’s unanimous-decision win over Martin Murray.

Golovkin (27-0, 23 KOs) scored his 14th-straight knockout last month against Matthew Macklin, whom Martinez stopped in March of last year. 

“If it was up to me, I would take Gennady Golovkin out, you know? They’re saying that he’s the most feared middleweight, but I’m calling him out. People are scared to fight him, but I’m asking to fight him. His trainer, though, is saying I’m not ready. I don’t know how I’m not ready if I’m asking to fight,” said Stevens.

“[Golovkin’s trainer] Abel Sanchez, he’s smart. He knows not to put Gennady Golovkin in there with me, because he’s going to get his first loss ever in his career, and he’s going to get knocked out with that loss. From what I have seen, Gennady likes to fight, and I like to fight too. He’s a power-puncher and I’m a power-puncher. Why not? I’m strong, I have a lot of knockouts and I have one-punch knockout power.”

Also on the card, heavyweight “Fast” Eddie Chambers (36-3, 18 KOs) meets Thabiso “The Rock” Mchunu (13-1, 10 KOs), and heavyweight Tomasz Adamek (48-2, 29 KOs)  faces Dominick Guinn (34-9-1, 23 KOs).

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]