by David P. Greisman
Even before Sergey Kovalev stepped into the ring with his last opponent, we were thinking ahead about whom he could face next.
Kovalev’s opponent this past Saturday, Nadjib Mohammedi, wasn’t given a chance to win (he didn’t.) It wasn’t even certain that the fight would be competitive (it wasn’t). But the fact that Kovalev was facing someone of Mohammedi’s caliber — or rather that Mohammedi was facing someone on Kovalev’s level — was because of a present problem that had presented itself in the past and was likely to present itself in the future.
There are a handful of desirable foes at light heavyweight for Sergey Kovalev. Too few of them are viable.
And there are a handful of viable foes at light heavyweight for Kovalev. Too few of them are desirable.
This situation boils down to the same circumstances behind other similar conversations — the business of boxing and how the business gets in the way of the boxing.
Many of the desirable opponents are signed with Al Haymon. For a time, the powerful adviser’s clients had largely been appearing on Golden Boy Promotions shows and Showtime broadcasts, precluding matches against fighters who were being featured on network rival HBO, who were promoted by Golden Boy’s then-rival Top Rank, or both.
Now that Haymon and his investors have launched his “Premier Boxing Champions” series on an increasing number of networks, there seems even less a chance for many of the top fighters not with Haymon to face those signed with him.
He continues to expand his stable, in essence creating rosters of fighters in each division who can fight each other. It’s not wholly exclusive; there have been several cases of Haymon fighters facing outside opponents, though it seems with each week that more boxers are putting their names on dotted lines in order to become aligned.
In the 175-pound division, Haymon’s fighters include lineal champion Adonis Stevenson, contenders Eleider Alvarez, Artur Beterbiev and Andrzej Fonfara, prospect Marcus Browne, and even boxers who’ve seen better days than now such as Gabriel Campillo, Edwin Rodriguez and Thomas Williams Jr.
A year and a half ago, a potential fight between Stevenson and Kovalev was scuttled when Stevenson signed with Haymon and jumped to Showtime, where he was intent on facing then-titleholder Bernard Hopkins before the aging legend retired. That left Kovalev’s promoter, Main Events, searching for opponents to keep their fighter busy. He took out a pair of no-hopers in Cedric Agnew and Blake Caparello. Days before the Caparello bout, the company scored a coup by getting Hopkins to agree to face Kovalev instead of Stevenson.
Kovalev dominated Hopkins, and then Main Events was able to strike again by taking on another potential Stevenson foe, former champion Jean Pascal. That fight came this past March, with Kovalev winning via technical knockout. Once again, momentum moved toward Stevenson vs. Kovalev, as Main Events had petitioned the World Boxing Council — the sanctioning body that bestowed Stevenson’s belt — to take an extremely rare step of rating another sanctioning body’s titleholder. Kovalev, who has the other three world titles, was made Stevenson’s top challenger.
If the fight finally were to happen, it would have to happen through a purse bid, the process in which the promoter who bids the most money to stage a fight gets the right to do so. There wouldn’t be any agreement between camps, not when Stevenson’s team wanted to have the fight be a PBC show while Kovalev’s promoter wanted to stay loyal to HBO. And that is why Main Events pulled Kovalev out of contention. It didn’t want to bid too much on the fight and potentially lose money, nor did it want Kovalev to fight on another network. Its bluff had been called.
(There’s an even more intricate way of explaining all of this involving network rights and contract extensions, but that would take us even deeper down the rabbit hole of minutiae.)
Stevenson and the rest of Haymon’s stable of 175-pounders have been considered off limits as potential Kovalev opponents, as Kovalev is exclusively signed with HBO. And so it was not at all surprising that the undercard this past Saturday was originally scheduled to have four separate light heavyweights.
The broadcast featured Kovalev vs. Mohammedi and Jean Pascal against unbeaten prospect Yunieski Gonzalez. Also on the undercard was Sullivan Barrera, who won his fight via eighth-round technical knockout. A bout involving Isaac Chilemba was canceled. Barrera, Chilemba and Mohammedi are, like Kovalev, signed with Main Events. So too is Vasily Lepikhin, who lost to Chilemba in March. Pascal is affiliated with Canadian promoter Interbox, while Gonzalez is with Star Boxing.
In lieu of fights against Stevenson and others with Haymon, Main Events had been building up a roster of potential opponents for Kovalev to keep him busy between bigger fights. Aside from Chilemba vs. Lepikhin, they had largely been kept away from each other.
While that meant Main Events could keep Kovalev’s options open, it also meant that these boxers hadn’t done much to build their own names or to build cases as worthy challengers. Mohammedi had become mandatory challenger to one of Hopkins’s belts back in June 2014. Yet since then he had been consigned to preliminary undercards against inexperienced lower-level fighters, first on the same card on which Kovalev won Hopkins' titles, then on the same show as Kovalev-Pascal. Chilemba-Lepikhin had at least been part of an HBO tripleheader at Kovalev-Pascal, though the fight was dreadful to watch. Barrera hasn’t faced another notable light heavyweight yet.
Pascal-Gonzalez was placed in the broadcast co-feature slot in part to play up the possibility of a rematch between Kovalev and Pascal. There had been competitive moments between them in March until Kovalev regained control. Pascal was the best out of a shallow pool of options.
He struggled with the raw but determined Gonzalez, leaving with a very fortunate decision in a fight that some felt was close, while others saw Gonzalez as more deserving of the victory. Pascal-Gonzalez 2 should happen before Kovalev-Pascal 2 or Kovalev-Gonzalez. Pascal’s team revealed afterward that he tore a ligament in his right wrist, would need to recover, then would return against a comeback-level foe before being able to face Kovalev again no sooner than early 2016.
That left perhaps one viable and desirable opponent: Andre Ward, the super middleweight champion who recently returned from prolonged inactivity, weighing in at 172 pounds, winning, and now weighing in his mind whether he should return to 168 or move up to 175.
“I’ve been talking to Andre Ward’s people all week. I think we all agree that fight’s going to happen. It’s just a question of when,” Duva said earlier this month while speaking on a conference call in advance of Kovalev-Mohammedi. “The talks have been very amicable. They are making their decisions who they want to fight next, and we have plans in place already for Sergey for his next couple of fights. By the end of next year, maybe a little sooner, you’re going to get to see that fight.”
That timetable and Pascal’s situation could’ve meant a disappointing next year or so, with no fight against Stevenson, a long wait for Ward, and more fights against unheralded, untested or undeserving opponents.
But then Beterbiev entered the picture. Kovalev’s next fight is expected to be in Moscow, Russia, in late November. Beterbiev had a distinguished amateur career representing that country, winning one amateur world championship and competing in two Olympics.
At first thought, it seemed like Kovalev vs. Beterbiev would be somewhere between improbable and impossible, given that Beterbiev is with Haymon and could be in line for fights against many of the Premier Boxing Champions light heavyweights. Beterbiev’s promoter, Yvon Michel of Canadian company GYM, soon followed up this weekend by saying that such a fight could indeed be possible.
“Artur Beterbiev is now ranked at No. 2 by the IBF. With Mohammedi being knocked out, he was No. 1 and he will be losing his spot next week and we will receive a letter from the IBF for Beterbiev to fight for the mandatory position against whoever will have the guts to get in the ring with him,” Michel told BoxingScene’s Rick Reeno. “But if we have the opportunity to fight for the title directly, this is something that we're more than happy about.
“Just have an honest offer. No strings attached, no options and first and last [rights] from the network. Except we will agree to a rematch clause, because there is no problem giving him a rematch after Beterbiev knocks him out. If we can do it that way, we will of course abandon the route of trying to get the mandatory position and take the challenge,” he said.
There wouldn’t be similar reservations like there were with Stevenson — who’s also promoted by Michel and advised by Haymon — when it comes to a potential Kovalev fight, Michel said.
“There is no problem [with HBO]. Artur is in a different position than Stevenson. Stevenson is a champion, he has an association with a network in Showtime and wherever he is, he demands a big purse. Artur is challenger and he understands the position of being a challenger. And when a challenger has an opportunity to fight against the champion [he takes it]," he said.
“All we want is honest and fair offer, and we will also be honest because we know that Kovalev is the champion and has three belts. We are not going to ask for the moon. It’s a fight we want to have. It’s a fight that Artur Beterbiev has wanted since he did his first pro fight and he’s ready any time to do it.”
But before boxing fans get too optimistic, they must acknowledge that Haymon, while officially serving the role of adviser, tends to exercise power in charting the directions his fighters take. He could very well decide against Kovalev-Beterbiev, particularly because he would prefer to keep the fighters he’s investing in in-house, and perhaps partially because Main Events sued Haymon and others over the Kovalev-Stevenson fallout in 2014 before dropping the case after Kovalev-Hopkins was made.
Beterbiev wouldn’t necessarily lose out in such a scenario, especially if he were to be promised a fight soon with Stevenson and paid well in the interim.
As often is the case with the business of boxing, then, we must wait for discussions to be had and decisions to be made behind closed doors before we can hear in what direction the sport’s top fighters will go.
It’s one thing for Main Events to say they will make an offer for Beterbiev to face Kovalev.
It’s another thing for Beterbiev’s promoter to say the fight is more of a possibility than was Stevenson against Kovalev.
If Kovalev-Beterbiev does happen, however, then we might hear something strange: Main Events and Kovalev uttering “I’d like to thank Al Haymon” for permitting the bout to take place.
The 10 Count will return soon.
“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com