Last Friday, Sergey Kovalev
continued his strong run of recent performances by bludgeoning Cornelius White
over three rounds. It wasn't so much a knockout as it was assault and battery
in front of a nationally televised audience on NBC Sports Network. It improved
his record to 21-0-1 (19) and earned him the mandatory position in the IBF (due
to visa issues, previous mandatory Karo Murat was forced to pull out of his
bout versus IBF light heavyweight beltholder Bernard Hopkins, scheduled for
July 13th).
It turns out Main Events had
other things cooking in the stove for the hard-hitting Russian.
Because just a week later,
it was announced that Kovalev would be facing WBO light heavyweight titlist
Nathan Cleverly on August 17th in Wales as part of a split-site HBO
tripleheader.
“We had been approached
about fighting Nathan Cleverly before after the White fight had been made and
it was already scheduled and ready to go,” explained Kathy Duva. “HBO called
and said, ‘Could you put him in with Cleverly?’ And we said, ‘Of course, but
we're not going to cancel this fight and he needs to become the number one
contender because he needs that protection. He needs to know he can get a title
fight one way or the other because if the fight with Cleverly were to fall
apart for some reason, he'd be left with nothing.’
“At that point, Murat was
fighting Hopkins and we were quite sure that the mandatory in the IBF would
never come due at least for another year. So it was sorta like, ‘Well, y’ know
what? It's good. Keep him active.’ We felt very confident he'd beat Cornelius
White. Get him in the ring; get more publicity; get him sharper and then to go
Wales and fight.”
But late into the process,
the dynamic changed after Murat's shot at Hopkins was nixed.
Duva recalls, “The deal was
supposed to be done before the fight happened. As it turns out, it was still
being haggled over on the other side and the deal wasn't completed. So the day
before the fight, we find out that Murat has pulled out and now this fight with
Sergey and White was to become Bernard Hopkins’ immediate mandatory - not
something anyone anticipated. So the IBF made their ruling on Monday; the
Cleverly fight still wasn't done, so I figured we've got to explore this. Let
me see what's going on in the event the Cleverly fight couldn't get made. We
certainly had to explore the other alternative.
“It became clear to me very
quickly that Bernard Hopkins wasn't going to fight Sergey despite these
statements that he's made,” said Duva, who picked up quickly on the grandstanding
of “The Executioner.” Golden Boy Promotions and Showtime made it clear that for
whatever reason, they had no interest in this match-up. “If you look at [the
statements] he's made, if you look at them very closely, what [Hopkins is]
saying is, ‘Well, of course, I'll honor my mandatory and fight him if that's my only alternative.’ The
problem is if the Cleverly fight didn't get made, Cleverly would've fought Hopkins
and Sergey would've been fighting for a vacant title.”
This much is clear; a fight
on HBO versus Cleverly was the sure money. Duva didn't want to play a game of
chicken here. She says, “Rather than fighting a reigning champion on August 17th and becoming champion of the world in two months, Kovalev was looking at the
alternative of going through several months as this whole thing would've sorted
itself out with Hopkins and then moving onto an available contender. Where
that's going to be televised, who knows if that'll be televised in the U.S.
because most of the other contenders were not Americans. As we went through the
whole thing, the decision was made on Tuesday: ‘Look, we get a sure title fight
on HBO. We should take it and if Bernard Hopkins wants to fight Kovalev, he can
do that next.’
“The fight will be a lot
bigger.”
ACTIVITY
The fight versus White was
Kovalev's fourth in the past 12 months (active by today's standards) and he
steadily built his profile on the “Fight Night” series on NBC Sports Network.
There's a lesson to be learned here for boxers: just keep fighting and winning
- then ask questions later.
“That's what we tell
everyone when we sign them. If they don't want to do that, we don't sign them,”
Duva said, laughing. That's my theory: stay active; get your name out there;
let the boxing public know you. If you have an exciting style like Sergey, you
can't really perform too often but who wouldn't want to see him fight? So he
got everybody's attention. His first fight with us was last September - a
highlight with Darnell Boone which got on NBC Sports Network. He fought on NBC
after that two more times and already he's in a title fight less than a year
after we signed him. So I think he's going to be the NBC Sports Network series’
first world champion and we're really excited about that.
“Without NBC, none of this
would've been possible.”
175
In talking to Yvon Michel,
who handles the career of WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (owed
a hearty “Thank you” from HBO subscribers for getting rid of Chad Dawson), it
looks like “Superman” will be back on their airwaves in the fall months from
Montreal. Michel says he hopes to have Stevenson fight one more time in 2013
after that.
It's clear that HBO is
making the 175-pound class a priority. Not only are there some exciting
pairings to be had but it theoretically begins the process of creating future
opponents for Andre Ward, should he move up in weight (and whenever his career
resumes).
Duva states, “Oh, most
definitely and this deal that we have with HBO for Sergey is not just for one
fight. So that's my indication and they've already made a commitment to Adonis
Stevenson; that's obvious. It's a terrific division; there's a lot of
excitement. They've got Cleverly and Kovalev; obviously, the winner is going to
be coming back. There's people that will move up in weight like Andre Ward and
maybe Carl Froch. There's some incredibly interesting match-ups that can be
made. When you get a huge puncher like Stevenson, a huge puncher like Sergey,
when you have that kind of excitement in a weight division, this reminds me of
when I first became involved in boxing.
“I remember the time of
Marvin Johnson and Matthew Saad Muhammad, John Conteh from England. Michael
Spinks was a part of that chain, Yaqui Lopez, who never won a title but made a
lot of great fights.
And to her, there is a fight
that goes right alongside Micky Ward vs. Arturo Gatti I for sheer brutality and
excitement.
“I was in the room when
Yaqui Lopez fought Matthew Saad Muhammad, which, in my memory, is still the
most hellacious fight I've ever seen because they were bigger. Gatti-Ward was
more exciting in many ways but, boy, Saad Muhammad and Lopez, that was just...I
was sitting at ringside and I can't even describe how hard they were hitting
each other. It was just mind-boggling.
“We have a division now that
is really exciting and HBO's really smart, I think, to get on board.”
AUGUST 17TH
Not sure if the
Cleverly-Kovalev will be aired live or just on tape-delay but as of now, this
will be a three-fight telecast on HBO. From Atlantic City, Daniel Geale defends
his IBF middleweight title versus Darren Barker and IBF 122-pound beltholder
Jhonathan Romero was supposed to have faced Joseph Agbeko. However, Agbeko was
pulled from this assignment because he's promoted by Don King – who, to this
day, is still barred from doing business in New Jersey due to his past
transgressions with the IBF and never facing the music in front of the state’s
gaming board.
TIX
OK, good luck to you getting
any of these but the tickets for the bout between Floyd Mayweather and Saul
Alvarez go on sale soon(Tuesday, June
25 at 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 p.m. PT). Here's the info (from a Golden Boy
press release):
Tickets will be priced at $2,000,
$1,500, $1,000, $600 and $350, not including applicable service charges, with a
total ticket limit of 12 per person, a limit of 10 per person at the $2,000,
$1,500, $1,000, $600 and $350 price levels and a limit of two per person at the
$350 price level. To charge
by phone with a major credit card, call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000. Tickets will also be available for
purchase at www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com.
WEEKEND FLURRIES
Expect the IBF to reinstate Murat as its
mandatory to Hopkins. So yeah, that explains a lot of Hopkins' comments from a
few days ago...Vasyl Lomachenko was on hand for the Tim Bradley-Juan Manuel Marquez
press conference on Thursday. So yes, Top Rank is certainly in the running for
his professional services...Is anyone really giving Paulie Malignaggi a shot
versus Adrien Broner? To me, the most intriguing fight of the Showtime broadcast
is the rematch between Johnathon Banks and Seth Mitchell...C'mon, just admit it;
LeBron James is a brilliant player. One of the best we'll ever see when it's all
said and done....So have the “shotgun formation” and “pistol offense” jokes
began in reference to Aaron Hernandez yet?...
