By Radio Rahim
Abel Sanchez, trainer of WBA/IBF/IBO/WBC middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, is still siding with Sergey Kovalev (30-0-1, 26KOs) to defeat Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward (30-0, 15KOs) on November 19th.
The HBO Pay-Per-View fight is still in the process of being finalized for November 19th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Kovalev, who holds the IBF/WBA/IBF light heavyweight titles, had some issues with a twelve round decision win over Isaac Chilemba back in July. The fight was a lot tougher than many experts had expected for him.
Ward also had a fight earlier this month, when he dominated a very overmatched Alexander Brand over twelve rounds.
Sanchez is expecting a very lackluster fight when Kovalev steps in the ring with Ward, because he predicts the champion will box in a calculated manner to keep Ward at the end of his punches for twelve rounds. He also picks Ward to beat everyone not named Kovalev at 175.
"I still think that Kovalev wins, but Gennady is going to put up a great fight. I think Kovalev is the bigger guy. I think Kovalev is going to box him like he did [Bernard] Hopkins, from the outside and never lets Andre get close. I don't think it's going to be the kind of fight that is as crowd pleasing as we may think, because of [the strategy of] Kovalev. It's going to be a good fight between two great fighters," Sanchez told BoxingScene.com.
"Kovalev has nothing to prove by beating Andre Ward. He's already beaten a lot of champions. He's making a lot of money. So he's not going to exchange with Andre, in my opinion, and fight him like he did with Hopkins."
"Andre can stay at 175 [after the loss]. I think the only guy he doesn't beat at 175 is Kovalev - but everyone else he beats. There is no other champion that can beat Andre so he can get the other three belts and fight [Kovalev] again."
