By Keith Idec
Igor Mikhalkin hasn’t knocked out nearly as many of his opponents as Sergey Kovalev.
Nevertheless, Kovalev knows his fight against Mikhalkin will be challenging because his former amateur teammate has the same mentality as him and most Russian boxers. Kovalev (31-2-1, 27 KOs) will defend his WBO light heavyweight title against Mikhalkin (21-1, 9 KOs) on March 3 in the main event of an HBO doubleheader from The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s gonna be interesting because he’s Russian and I’m Russian,” Kovalev told BoxingScene.com. “We have the same mentality. We don’t go in there to take a step back. I’m going to fight [coming] forward and I think Igor will do that, too.”
The 34-year-old Kovalev is heavily favored to beat Mikhalkin, a southpaw who holds the IBO 175-pound championship. The 32-year-old Mikhalkin has won 10 straight fights, though, since suffering his only loss – a 10-round, unanimous-decision defeat to Poland’s Aleksy Kuziemski (then 18-1) in May 2010 in Rostock, Germany.
“He’s a good boxer,” Kovalev said. “He’s very motivated right now for this title fight. He never fought for a real belt, with a real champion. I think it’s gonna be a very, very good fight.”
A victory over Mikhalkin should lead Kovalev to a title unification fight, but the former IBF/WBA/WBO champion is reluctant to discuss intriguing encounters with WBA champion Dmitry Bivol (12-0, 10 KOs) or IBF champ Artur Beterbiev (12-0, 12 KOs) before meeting Mikhalkin. Kovalev thinks he still needs to show he has overcome his technical knockout defeat to Andre Ward in their rematch because his three-knockdown, second-round stoppage of Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (19-2, 16 KOs) didn’t last long November 25 at The Theater.
“I need one more fight to show that I can fight with the best fighters,” Kovalev said. “I think that after this fight, my fights will be with strong, strong opponents in the light heavyweight division, maybe title unification fights. I don’t wanna look behind the back of Igor Mikhalkin because right now my next fight is March 3rd and I should be focused on this fight.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.