Montreal’s Adonis Stevenson will defend his World Boxing Council title in Toronto next month as part of a Lennox-Lewis backed effort to bring professional boxing back to Canada’s biggest city.

The retired heavyweight champion announced on Wednesday that Stevenson will fight American Tommy Karpency in a World Boxing Council light heavyweight title fight on Sept. 11 at Ricoh Coliseum.

Also fighting on the card will be Canadian boxers Dillon “Big Country” Carman and Donovan Ruddock.

“We want to bring boxing to the highest level in Canada and that means bringing great fights to this city and great fights to this country, so everybody can actually come to a great fight,” Lewis said. “This is Adonis’s first time fighting in Toronto, so we want to show him that Toronto people love him and boxing.”

Lewis, a three-time heavyweight championship winner, has long called for highly-rated boxers to come to Toronto to fight. He spoke to CP24 last month about wanting to make Toronto a “boxing city.”

In that interview, he said when he was coming up, there was nowhere in Canada for him to get professional level training and he was forced to leave the country.

“I think Canada really needs it,” he said. “This is what we want to do in the coming years so that no one has to leave Canada and they have a place at home where we can develop them.”

The fight on Sept. 11 is being brought to the city by boxing promotion firms Groupe Yvon Michel and Global Legacy Boxing as well as Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.