Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward already have a finalized agreement in place for a fight later this year, and now the date for that potential bout has been revealed. Kovalev-Ward, which would be an HBO pay-per-view event, is tentatively set for November 19, according to ESPN.com. The location of the fight has not been set.
The Kovalev-Ward bout, of course, hinges on both fighters not losing by that point. Ward (29-0-1, 26 KO) is coming off of a dominant defense of his WBA, IBF, and WBO light heavyweight titles on January 30, demolishing Jean Pascal in a rematch in Montreal. Ward (28-0, 15 KO) is set to make his full 175-pound move on March 26, when he faces Cuba's Sullivan Barrera in Oakland.
If Ward wins, it would probably be his last fight before the showdown with Kovalev. But Kovalev is expected to fight again this summer. There had been talk of him finally facing Adonis Stevenson in June, but that never went very far. The two met up ringside with one another at the DeGale-Bute fight last November in Montreal, and Stevenson did an "invading the ring" deal that convinced nobody after Kovalev beat Pascal last month, but the discussions were limited at best, and the fight has been all but written off at this point.
More likely, Kovalev will face some other mid-tier challenger in the summer, at best someone like Andrzej Fonfara, who is a legitimate contender, at least.
But if neither man loses a fight, it's set for November. This isn't a Golovkin-Canelo situation. Everyone is definitely on board.
ward turned it down. then he offered ggg a 50-50 split after ggg fights canelo? yea ok thats ridiculous and you know it. if that's wanting it you aren't very good at reading signals...
barrera is not a big name. you prob think paul smith and edwin rodriguez are big names lol. the only big names ward has were in the super six which was a tournament rigged in his favor. sorry if ggg fought a couple good fighters in kazakhstan and clinched nonstop while they traveled the world fighting each other i wouldn't be that impressed. would you? i guess so since you think ward proved his greatness by doign that.
well said :wave:
Ward is all that because he beat all the best boxers at 168 when they were in their prime and then KO'd an undefeated Dawson in his prime. With the exception of Mayweather, no current or recent fighter has fought all the best guys in and around his weight division and won.
It doesn't matter how long it has been since he fought. Until someone beats him, Ward is still THE MAN!
:lol1: We'll see. Ward fought Dawson 3 years and 5 months ago! Since then, he's fought twice... TWICE against bums! Years off and shoulder surgery changes a man. Don't be shocked if your boy isn't what he once was.
Who said anything about Barrera? If you don't know who the big names are on his resume then your just a sideline casual fan.
Fighting Lara at any weight is better then anything GGG has done and will do.
You see Amir Khan moving up in weight to fight Canelo, you see Cotto move up to MW to fight, Pac moved up, Floyd, the list goes on and on.. GGG has stayed at 160 from the beginning and will stay their because its trash and it will make him look good.
why are you making straw man arguements and ignoring the timeline? all those guys moved up beacuse they had guys to fight. please tell me how khan could have fought canelo if canelo didn't agree to fight him? how could cotto have fought martinez if martienz didn't agree to fight him? how could pac have fought people if they didn't agree to fight him? floyd etc? sure some mid level guys prob would have fought ggg but why would he move up for that? you seem to forget that ggg tried to fight the best at 168 for years and they said no. froch said no multiple times and ward said no then had "promoter troubles/needed tuneups" now that he actually has a big fight against canelo you want him to forget that and sign ward and with a comical 50-50 split?
this seems like a no win scenario for him. you tell him to go for the big fights(which he was unable to get) and now when he finally has a big fight you want him to go for a different fight because this one isn't to your liking? you tell him that 160 sucks and he should move up(even thoguh no one would fight him) but when 160 starts getting good and he has good fights soon you want him to move up just for the sake of moving up?
Winning the super 6 is greater then anything GGG will do in his entire career. The Krusher will be a better opponent then anyone GGG faces in his entire career. Ward has been doing things and continues to with his next fight. There's no defending GGG with that shlt resume and that next opponent. Stop giving him pass after pass. GGG could be great, but we wont know till he does something meaningful. He's getting older and older, they need to stop with the BS already.
both guys have had completely different circumstances so it's kinda pointless to compare them. ward had a super six tournament where all the best agreed to fight each other and it was heavily weighted in ward's favor. ggg had no such tournament and no such favors. ggg certainly tried to fight all the best but things unfortunately didn't work out. how could he be great if no one would fight him?
also perhaps you forgot but he tried to fight froch and ward who were the two best 168ers of the last 5-7 years and they both turned him down. how could he be great if no one would fight him? circumstances changed and he thought/thinks he's going to get a canelo fight now so now he's staying at 160. signing to fight ward with the canelo fight on the horizon would have been strange but i guess you call that a duck.
you also discount the national factor. ward had everything handed to him simply for being good and american. he was fighting on showtime/hbo in his first fights. ggg was good and not american and he was fighting in empty arenas off tv when he turned pro. pretty different dynamic and a lot less oportunities. it took ggg a good chunk of his career to build himself up and put himself in position for these oportunities that he now has. ward was offered a spot in the super six relatively quickly after not doing anything. that's why when people say ggg's been pro for 10 years omg! that statement lacks any nuance or understanding of how boxing works.
LMAO, so Barrera is a BIG name now? Come on man.
You say Lara has been calling GGG out. OK, but what if GGG were to say you come to up to 160 to fight me and then he breaks Lara to pieces? Do you think he would get any credit for asking Lara to move up for the fight? Both you and I know that he would get crucified for beating up on a smaller fighter, demanding a smaller fighter move up.
If Lara decides on his own to move up to test the waters at 160 and he makes his way into the top 10 at MW, then GGG decides to fight him, it's different. Then GGG would be fighting top ranked MW contender that has been calling him out. It would be different in my mind at least but I know full well that he would still get blasted for beating a guy that "used" to fight at 154.....he's in a no win situation.
And to the Ward thing....how do you duck a guy that outweighs you 15 pounds on fight night? That's like saying if Huck called out Ward and Ward refused to fight him and people accused Ward of ducking. GGG offered a compromise and Ward declined because he was so big that he couldn't even make 168 anymore, much less 164. He was the one wanting to truly pick on a smaller guy by demanding "lil g" jump up to a weight class for the fight.
Who said anything about Barrera? If you don't know who the big names are on his resume then your just a sideline casual fan.
Fighting Lara at any weight is better then anything GGG has done and will do.
You see Amir Khan moving up in weight to fight Canelo, you see Cotto move up to MW to fight, Pac moved up, Floyd, the list goes on and on.. GGG has stayed at 160 from the beginning and will stay their because its trash and it will make him look good.
ward turned it down. then he offered ggg a 50-50 split after ggg fights canelo? yea ok thats ridiculous and you know it. if that's wanting it you aren't very good at reading signals...
barrera is not a big name. you prob think paul smith and edwin rodriguez are big names lol. the only big names ward has were in the super six which was a tournament rigged in his favor. sorry if ggg fought a couple good fighters in kazakhstan and clinched nonstop while they traveled the world fighting each other i wouldn't be that impressed. would you? i guess so since you think ward proved his greatness by doign that.
Winning the super 6 is greater then anything GGG will do in his entire career. The Krusher will be a better opponent then anyone GGG faces in his entire career. Ward has been doing things and continues to with his next fight. There's no defending GGG with that shlt resume and that next opponent. Stop giving him pass after pass. GGG could be great, but we wont know till he does something meaningful. He's getting older and older, they need to stop with the BS already.
Lara has been calling GGG out, Ward wanted it too. Who's ducking? MW is full of nothing.
Ward has big names under his belt, in his next fight he will add another. GGG has zero big names, in his next fight he will add 0 to that and will continue to add nothing to it.
LMAO, so Barrera is a BIG name now? Come on man.
You say Lara has been calling GGG out. OK, but what if GGG were to say you come to up to 160 to fight me and then he breaks Lara to pieces? Do you think he would get any credit for asking Lara to move up for the fight? Both you and I know that he would get crucified for beating up on a smaller fighter, demanding a smaller fighter move up.
If Lara decides on his own to move up to test the waters at 160 and he makes his way into the top 10 at MW, then GGG decides to fight him, it's different. Then GGG would be fighting top ranked MW contender that has been calling him out. It would be different in my mind at least but I know full well that he would still get blasted for beating a guy that "used" to fight at 154.....he's in a no win situation.
And to the Ward thing....how do you duck a guy that outweighs you 15 pounds on fight night? That's like saying if Huck called out Ward and Ward refused to fight him and people accused Ward of ducking. GGG offered a compromise and Ward declined because he was so big that he couldn't even make 168 anymore, much less 164. He was the one wanting to truly pick on a smaller guy by demanding "lil g" jump up to a weight class for the fight.
Lara has been calling GGG out, Ward wanted it too. Who's ducking? MW is full of nothing.
Ward has big names under his belt, in his next fight he will add another. GGG has zero big names, in his next fight he will add 0 to that and will continue to add nothing to it.
ward turned it down. then he offered ggg a 50-50 split after ggg fights canelo? yea ok thats ridiculous and you know it. if that's wanting it you aren't very good at reading signals...
barrera is not a big name. you prob think paul smith and edwin rodriguez are big names lol. the only big names ward has were in the super six which was a tournament rigged in his favor. sorry if ggg fought a couple good fighters in kazakhstan and clinched nonstop while they traveled the world fighting each other i wouldn't be that impressed. would you? i guess so since you think ward proved his greatness by doign that.
Ward is SO big that he can't even make 168 anymore. GGG rehydrates to 167-170 on fight night. I could see if GGG was ballooning up to 175-178 on fight night but that's not the case.
Wade IS the mandatory challenger, it's not like GGG's team sought him out, that's who he was mandated to fight. Why do so many people continue to blame GGG instead of the guys ducking him? It makes no sense at all. Is he fighting subpar competition? Maybe, but why aren't the other champs held accountable for running away?
People act like Ward has been fighting elite competition non-stop and blowing them away. He fought Paul Smith and Rodriguez in the last 3/4 years....that's it. Those two guys are just as scrubbish as the guys that GGG has been fighting.
Lara has been calling GGG out, Ward wanted it too. Who's ducking? MW is full of nothing.
Ward has big names under his belt, in his next fight he will add another. GGG has zero big names, in his next fight he will add 0 to that and will continue to add nothing to it.
Feelings mutual, I love Kovalev but think people are stanning him too hard. Andre annoys the **** out of me but I think he's still got the goods; if Kovalev wins though, I wouldn't be upset at all. If he can beat Ward and Stevenson he'd be p4p #1 in my book.
Just by beating kkkov earns ward the 1# p4p. Because kkov it's top 3 right now
Paul, I think you have over 1 trillion points, you got this. I'll sig it up, good luck.
For as much as I crap on Ward, I do think he has good skills (I don't like to admit that often) but his attitude and the way people think he walks on water have ruined him for me. That being said, I think the fight will be competitive, but Killa Kov is just too much.
Feelings mutual, I love Kovalev but think people are stanning him too hard. Andre annoys the **** out of me but I think he's still got the goods; if Kovalev wins though, I wouldn't be upset at all. If he can beat Ward and Stevenson he'd be p4p #1 in my book.
I have no idea how many points I have, but sure
Paul, I think you have over 1 trillion points, you got this. I'll sig it up, good luck.
For as much as I crap on Ward, I do think he has good skills (I don't like to admit that often) but his attitude and the way people think he walks on water have ruined him for me. That being said, I think the fight will be competitive, but Killa Kov is just too much.