By Steve Kim
With his fifth-round stoppage of Karo Murat on Saturday night at the Civic Auditorium in Glendale, California, light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera earned the number one spot in the IBF, a title which is held by Sergey Kovalev. Both Barrera and Kovalev - who was in attendance over the weekend at this fight card - are promoted under the Main Events banner.
Kathy Duva the head of Main Events explained - "When you have a unified champion the mandatories take turns. It's a long established precedent. With the IBF, (Kovalev) did his defense in July (versus Nadjib Mohemmedi), the next one in line is the WBO and so I can't really predict what's going to happen."
Kovalev has the WBA, WBO and IBF belts but right now, the focus is on the WBC belt-holder.
"We're trying to make the Adonis Stevenson fight, that would be a unification - that would trump everything," explained Duva. "So it's hard to predict what the timeline would be but (Sullivan) is on the cue, he's on line and he'll fight. We'll keep him busy, if not immediately with Sergey in June. That would be the option if we don't do Stevenson."
Main Events and Kovalev entered into an agreement with HBO to face Andre Ward at some point in the second half of 2016, which means Barrera may have to wait his turn in line to face 'the Krusher'.
"But we'll keep him busy and he'll be fighting,"promised Duva."He looked tremendous tonight. He really earned it."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
