Kovalev-Pascal II: Will It Get The Sport Where It Belongs?

By Cliff Rold

Some of the most anticipated nights in boxing history were sequels. Rematches of classic fights have a mixed bag in terms of outcome. There is no denying their allure in the lead up to the opening bell. The chance to see lightning strike twice is rare but worth waiting for.

This Saturday does not carry that kind of mystique.

Sergey Kovalev-Jean Pascal II is the sort of fight we get when the politics of boxing deny the sport an overdue showdown. It’s a best available pay fight that kills time until something better comes along and before another mandatory mismatch can rear its ugly head.

The overdue is a showdown between unified WBA, IBF, and WBO titlist Sergey Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KO) and WBC and lineal light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (27-1, 22 KO).

If it’s not next, it might never be at all.

It’s not that there was anything wrong with the first Kovalev-Pascal fight. It was a good scrap. Pascal even won a couple rounds before suffering the first stoppage loss of his career. That doesn’t mean there was any great demand for this rematch.

Nothing in the first fight last March suggested Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KO) could turn the tables. Nothing since, with Pascal lucky to get a decision over Yunieski Gonzalez in July, suggests he’s heading into this fight improved. They’ll put butts in the seats again because the Bell Centre in Montreal turns out. That makes Pascal a better economic choice than what sits in the alphabet ratings for Kovalev.

The WBA’s top contender, aside from sub-titlist Juergen Braehmer (47-2, 35 KO), is Felix Valera, 13-0 with 12 KOs. The WBO lead contender is Dominic Boesel (21-0, 7 KO). Both are virtually unknown, not deeply tested, and would generate little excitement outside their own families as opponents. Almost no one outside the sanctioning bodies would see either as a serious top ten opponent right now.

Stevenson has a more compelling potential mandatory. Eleider Alvarez (19-0, 10 KO) is widely seen as legitimately among the better light heavyweights in the world. The 31-year old Colombian has made Canada his fistic home. It could do some box office. Alvarez would have a very real chance at upsetting Stevenson.

That alone might motivate Stevenson to try and make the bigger money fight with Kovalev sooner than later. If you’re looking at a possible loss, it always makes sense to risk for more. Stevenson might be a late bloomer with a little less wear than most fighters his age. He’s still a 38-year old fighter.

Even in an era with fewer fights, that’s not much for a prime window.

According to a report from Steve Kim at this site on Monday, Kovalev’s side says they are trying to make the bout for June. Kovalev doesn’t have a perceived threat looming until later in the year. When he does, it’s a bigger threat than Alvarez. A showdown with former super middleweight king Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KO) is allegedly penciled in for the fall. That’s going to be, relative to the business of light heavyweight, a big deal.

Kovalev-Ward is a 50/50 fight. It’s also not slated until the fall at the earliest. Anything could happen between now and then, not the least of which could be injuries. “We’re probably going to get a fight we want at light heavyweight before next Christmas!”

Cool.

It shouldn’t happen until existing matters are resolved.

Stevenson and Kovalev have been the two best fighters in the light heavyweight division since 2013. Myriad obstacles have obstructed the fight. Promoters and networks…the usual song and dance. Folks can argue about whose fault it has been that they haven’t fought yet at various times.

Does it really matter?

They haven’t fought. That’s the bottom line. Fans shouldn’t have to jaw about whose fault it is or pick sides between promotional outfits on social media. A little marinade can make for a fine dish. This hasn’t been marinade.

It’s just rot.
  
It’s what goes wrong with boxing far too often in a nutshell. In the 90s, in this same division, Roy Jones and Dariusz Michalczewski were far and away the two best in the division for about five years. From a boxing purist stand point it was a significant miss for both. Most think Roy would have won.

That’s not an actual win.

Odds makers would favor Kovalev at this point over Stevenson. That will never be an actual win either.

If Stevenson and Kovalev never fight it would be worse than the previous generations big light heavyweight miss. Unlike Jones and the German-based Michalczewski, Kovalev and Stevenson’s fights are regularly aired in the same markets. Two of Kovalev’s title fights, three after this weekend, have come on Stevenson’s Canadian stomping grounds.

This isn’t a dramatic ‘who’s gonna’ travel and who’s gonna’ pay’ scenario. 

The sport has always had holes; had certain fights that didn’t happen. We hear or read bromides about how no one fights everyone and that’s true. There are examples of fights in thicker activity eras like the 1940s that didn’t happen.

That doesn’t excuse the two best fighters in a division, like Kovalev and Stevenson, spending half a year fighting Nadjib Mohameddi and Tommy Karpency, respectively. That’s how they closed out 2015. It can be explained in part by sanctioning body rankings and television dates. Explains and excuses are two different things. Explaining shouldn’t be confused with excusing bad fights because that’s what we got.

They were bad fights on paper and ugly mismatches in the ring. Unless Pascal can win three rounds this time, this rematch only looks so much better.

The business of boxing is a messy thing. The sport of boxing is not when it gets the right fighters in the ring together.

Stevenson and Kovalev are the right fighters, before any other fight in the division. Let’s hope the Pascal rematch is a last step in getting the sport of boxing where it belongs.

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com