By Edward Chaykovsky
John David Jackson, trainer for WBA/WBO/IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (28-0-1, 25KOs), feels WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (2701, 22KOs) is the better fan friendly opponent when compared to Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward (28-0, 15KOs).
Kovalev returns next Saturday night in a rematch with Jean Pascal at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
If Kovalev wins, he wants to return to the ring in June against Stevenson. There are ongoing discussions to make that fight for the summer, but nobody is holding their breath on the fight actually taking place after so many failed negotiations.
Kovalev already has a fight in place with Ward for the fall - provided Ward wins his next bout on March 26th against an opponent to be determined.
Jackson worked with Stevenson in the past and says his deadly power is for real, but that power is mostly in his left hand. He says Kovalev will have a big advantage when they fight because of he possess power in both hands, and he feels his boxer has the better overall chin. Jacokson says a knockout is guaranteed when Stevenson and Kovalev meet, but Ward will present a totally different kind of fight as he is a master boxer and not a puncher.
"I trained Stevenson for a while and in his left hand he has numbing power. From a fans point of view, that is a better fight because either fighter can get hurt. I think Sergey has a better set of whiskers than Stevenson and I think that will be the telling sign in that fight," Jackson told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"Stevenson brings one punch knockout power with the left hand, and the thing that helps Sergey in that fight is that Sergey punches hard with both hands and he’s a better boxer and combination puncher. From a fan point of view, you want to see a Stevenson-Kovalev fight because a knockout is guaranteed in that fight, the Ward fight presents different problems."
