By Victor Salazar

New York - It’s been close to 5 months since Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KO’s) lost a close and what some consider to be a controversial decision to Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KO’s). The two were on hand inside a New York hotel to promote their much anticipated rematch taking place on June 17th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

The first fight was produced on HBO Pay-Per-View and generated about 130,000 buys. Because of the purse commands of both fighter and a shrinking budget on HBO, the rematch will again be on the HBO pay-per-view platform.

Kovalev’s promoter - Kathy Duva of Main Events - was asked at a media roundtable if there was any thought on having the second fight land on regular HBO and not on its pay-per-view platform - to which Duva said - “It was probably a minute thought and then it went away.”

Duva feels the numbers in November may have been lacking due to the United States Presidential Election - which, according to Duva, caused all television programming to take a hit.

“I feel more heat and interest this time already,” Duva said of the rematch. “I feel more people are anticipating this fight than last time. We had an awful lot going against us. It wasn’t just the Pacquiao fight. It was the election and everything that was going in. The NFL was down 20 percent, everyone’s numbers were down"

Duva isn’t as worried about the numbers generated for the rematch. Instead, she is more concerned with her guy getting his belts back.

“This time’s a little different, I think people want to know if guys are going to beat each other up because they don’t like each other,” Duva told BoxingScene.com

“It was made very clear to me the day after the fight - he wants his belts back. This one isn’t for the money, it’s for the belts so I don’t really care if it does better but I think it might."