Kovalev - Canadian pit stop or prelude to Stevenson?

By Lyle Fitzsimmons

OK, folks, what exactly did we see on Saturday night in Montreal?

Was it a rampaging champion stepping up in class and handling – albeit not entirely comprehensively – the most completely qualified challenger either he or his most significant contemporary has met?

Or was it something else, more along the lines of a heretofore beyond reproach automaton being shown to have tangible cracks in what had previously been an impenetrable shell?

It says here that it was a little of both.

Yes, Sergey Kovalev threw more punches, landed more punches, scored the lone knockdown and had won all but one round when hostilities ended after 63 seconds of round 8 with Jean Pascal.

And yes, Kovalev was unable to blow the doors off a consensus top-five light heavyweight, left himself open for more than intermittent counterpunches and wobbled noticeably upon their landings.

Even the Russian himself seemed to waver in his assessment, suggesting to HBO’s microphone that he wasn’t thrilled with the beginning, but that the end was precisely what the Kremlin ordered.

“How I start it, I didn't like,” Kovalev told HBO's Max Kellerman. “But after four rounds I got the control. I got him with a good right hand and he was mine.”

Of course, the unsettled nature of the Kovalev report card does little practical good for the gutty but certainly beaten Pascal, who’ll be nursing a headache for days even as his perceptions rise in the eyes of those who judge a fighter’s worth by the beating he’s able to absorb before folding.

Toward those dubious ends, he earned more respect in loss No. 3 than he had in wins 1 through 29.

But beyond those cosmetics, there might have been some good for the rest of us, too.

Though he never appeared on camera and his would-be chatter was run through a 50-year-old broadcast filter, the light heavyweight division’s “other” champion – Adonis Stevenson – was apparently moved to the sorts of definitive declarations he’d normally not made in mixed company.

Guest headset model Bernard Hopkins, in fact, claimed he and Stevenson had a meaningful down-low conversation amid the immediate post-fight tumult, a chat during which the WBC kingpin was nothing less than affirmative in his intention to meet Kovalev and unify the 175-pound ranks.

Tommy Oosthuizen, of course, notwithstanding.

“He said, ‘Believe me, I will fight him,’” Hopkins said. “’Bernard, I'm going to make it happen.’”

Hopkins relayed the remarks through Kellerman to Kovalev, who replied “I'm ready for anyone.”

It all made for perfectly compelling television after a card on which the first two fights involved combatants precisely zero non-serious fans would have recognized.

But the larger question still remains: Was “Superman” even remotely serious?

If past actions are prescient, the answer would lean toward no. But if past media encounters are indicative, the only things he’s waiting for are dotted I’s and crossed T’s.

When we talked in December – a few days before his thrashing of Dmitry Sukhotsky – and when it came to Kovalev back then it was all over but the victory parade.

“I'm going to fight Kovalev. I'm going to beat him. And then it will be another story,” Stevenson said. “He's got three titles, and that's OK, but in 2015 we're going to take care of business. We will be looking forward to that. And when I finish beating Kovalev, then the fans will probably find somebody else.

“It's always like that. That's the reality and that's why I don't care. I want the fight. And the manager and the promoter will do their jobs, too. I want the fight. I want the fight so bad.”

Beaten only once in 26 pro fights since 2006, Stevenson emerged among the 175-pounders with a one-round erasure of Chad Dawson, who’d been considered the best of the bunch prior to that early June night in 2013. But while an awful lot of folks have since dropped him to No. 2 – including Kellerman and many others who rate fighters in their off-hours – the brash 37-year-old suggested otherwise.

“I'm the Ring magazine light heavyweight champion, the linear light heavyweight champion and the WBC light heavyweight champion, and (Kovalev) knows that,” he said. “I'm the king of the light heavyweights. I hear fans and media say he is the king at light heavyweight, but it doesn't work like that.

“You have to go in the ring and fight the best. I fought the best at light heavyweight; that was Chad Dawson. He was the Ring magazine and the linear champion. I fought the best, so I'm the king now.

“You beat the best, now you're the best.”

To be sure, skeptics have dismissed that chatter – and Saturday’s follow – as meaningless.

But keep in mind, they’re the very same skeptics who’d also had other plans for May 2, too.

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This week's title-fight schedule:

SUNDAY
IBO junior flyweight title – East London, South Africa
Rey Loreto (champion/No. 9 IWBR) vs. Nkosinathi Joyi (unranked/No. 15 IWBR)
Loreto (19-13, 11 KO): First title defense; Beat Joyi (KO 3) to win vacant title in 2014
Joyi (24-3, 17 KO): Eleventh title fight (6-3, 4 KO, 1 NC); Held IBO and IBF titles at 105 pounds
Fitzbitz says: Joyi has lost three of his last five fights, twice by knockout, and he was flattened by Loreto when they met a year ago. But call me stubborn, I still believe he’s the better man. Joyi by decision

Last week's picks: 2-0 (WIN: Kovalev, Oosthuizen)
2015 picks record: 8-3 (72.7 percent)
Overall picks record: 647-226 (74.1 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.