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By Rick Reeno, photo by Tom Hogan
Las Vegas - Light heavyweight contender Sergey "Krusher" Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) is promising to deal out a lot of pain and punishment on Saturday night, when he faces IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) at the Mandalay Bay Event Center.
The fight is a rematch of last November's encounter - which took place at T-Mobile Arena - and saw Ward win a razor-thin twelve round round unanimous decision to capture Kovalev's three world titles. All three of the judges scored it 114-113 for Ward.
The championship event will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
In the second round of their first bout, Kovalev scored what appeared to be a hard knockdown. Ward recovered by the end of that round.
Kovalev was not surprised by Ward's recovery, because his punch - which created the knockdown - did not land flush. If the shot would have landed flush, he believes Ward would have been in serious trouble.
"I wasn't surprised that he got up. I would have been surprised if he didn't get up, because I hit him with these [bottom] knuckles of my fist, these fingers. It wasn't a straight punch. My arm was extended," Kovalev said.
Kovalev wants to dish out the same type of beating that was given to former world champion Jean Pascal, in their January 2016 rematch.
"I want to kick his ass like I did with Jean Pascal in the rematch. I want to have fun in there," Kovalev said.
"They are trying right now to break my mind, in any way, in any way to get control and break my focus, because right now I'm really focused to smash him, smash his face and punish him for everything that he said. Pascal tried the same thing, with bananas, he made a circus for the fans."