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By Tim Fletcher: Last night, IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev called out WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson in an embarrassing way after Kovalev’s 7th round stoppage win over Jean Pascal in their rematch on HBO at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. It’s unclear whether Kovalev realized that the 38-year-old Stevenson was in the ring at the time.
Whatever the case, Kovalev said “I want to unify all four titles. I want to fight Adonis Chickenson.” Kovalev made things worse by imitating a chicken, and making it seem like Stevenson is a coward for not accepting a fight with him. Stevenson immediately walked up on Kovalev at that moment and had to be restrained after saying “I am the champion.”
It’s too bad that a fight didn’t break out between Kovalev and Stevenson, because it would have been a lot more entertaining than the mismatch that took place last night between Kovalev and the over-matched Pascal. That wasn’t even worth watching.
Kovalev gave Pascal a pounding and he was rarely hit back at all. It was too one-sided a fight for my tastes and Pascal’s new trainer Freddie Roach should have done his job much earlier in the fight by stopping it in the 5th instead of letting his fighter soak up more punishment for two additional rounds in stopping it after the 7th.
The fact that Stevenson came into the ring to confront Kovalev was a curious thing. Normally, you would think something like that would be an indication that Stevenson is interested in facing Kovalev next or in the near future, but the latest boxing news is that the negotiations between Kovalev and Stevenson are completely dead. The fight is not going to happen due to the inability for them to solve who would be televising the fight on pay-per-view – HBO or Showtime.
Kovalev is just too good right now for an aging fighter like Stevenson to fight him.
Kovalev seems to be beating a dead horse in calling out Stevenson over and over again. The two of them are on separate sides of the fence given that Stevenson is with Showtime and Kovalev with HBO. There’s no way that this fight is going to happen, and Kovalev would be better off focusing on the fights that can be made against guys like Andre Ward, Sullivan Barrera, Artur Beterbiev, Eleider Alvarez, Andzej Fonfara and Isaac Chilemba.
Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva at Main Events should look to match him against some of the super middleweights like James DeGale or Badou Jack. She could try and get some of the cruiserweights to fight Kovalev like Olesandr Usyk, Denis Lebedev, Grigory Drozd or Krzystof Glowaki. Some of those are doable fights. Getting Stevenson in the ring is just not going to happen because of them being with different networks.
Stevenson says that he wants a 50-50 deal on the pay-per-view revenue for a fight between him and Kovalev. However, it’s a fight that will likely not be made unless a deal can get ironed out with the two networks. This is not a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao type of PPV fight, and the money that can be made by the networks is likely very small. It wouldn’t be surprising if the fight doesn’t even bring in 100,000 pay-per-view buys. If it’s going to be split between HBO and Showtime, then it could be even less money for the networks to make off the fight.
I don’t know that Stevenson and his adviser Al Haymon really want the fight against Kovalev. They have a good thing going with Stevenson attracting huge crowds for mismatches against guys like Tommy Karpency, Sakio Bika, Dmitry Sukhotsky, Andrzej Fonfara, Tony Bellew, Tavoris Cloud. With the kind of crowds that Stevenson is able to attract in Canada, there’s no real reason for him to risk losing his title against Kovalev. Stevenson is in the same situation that WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is in with him being able to fight anyone he likes and make good money without even needing to take risky fights against guys like Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs or Demetrius Andrade.
Whatever the case, Kovalev said “I want to unify all four titles. I want to fight Adonis Chickenson.” Kovalev made things worse by imitating a chicken, and making it seem like Stevenson is a coward for not accepting a fight with him. Stevenson immediately walked up on Kovalev at that moment and had to be restrained after saying “I am the champion.”
It’s too bad that a fight didn’t break out between Kovalev and Stevenson, because it would have been a lot more entertaining than the mismatch that took place last night between Kovalev and the over-matched Pascal. That wasn’t even worth watching.
Kovalev gave Pascal a pounding and he was rarely hit back at all. It was too one-sided a fight for my tastes and Pascal’s new trainer Freddie Roach should have done his job much earlier in the fight by stopping it in the 5th instead of letting his fighter soak up more punishment for two additional rounds in stopping it after the 7th.
The fact that Stevenson came into the ring to confront Kovalev was a curious thing. Normally, you would think something like that would be an indication that Stevenson is interested in facing Kovalev next or in the near future, but the latest boxing news is that the negotiations between Kovalev and Stevenson are completely dead. The fight is not going to happen due to the inability for them to solve who would be televising the fight on pay-per-view – HBO or Showtime.
Kovalev is just too good right now for an aging fighter like Stevenson to fight him.
Kovalev seems to be beating a dead horse in calling out Stevenson over and over again. The two of them are on separate sides of the fence given that Stevenson is with Showtime and Kovalev with HBO. There’s no way that this fight is going to happen, and Kovalev would be better off focusing on the fights that can be made against guys like Andre Ward, Sullivan Barrera, Artur Beterbiev, Eleider Alvarez, Andzej Fonfara and Isaac Chilemba.
Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva at Main Events should look to match him against some of the super middleweights like James DeGale or Badou Jack. She could try and get some of the cruiserweights to fight Kovalev like Olesandr Usyk, Denis Lebedev, Grigory Drozd or Krzystof Glowaki. Some of those are doable fights. Getting Stevenson in the ring is just not going to happen because of them being with different networks.
Stevenson says that he wants a 50-50 deal on the pay-per-view revenue for a fight between him and Kovalev. However, it’s a fight that will likely not be made unless a deal can get ironed out with the two networks. This is not a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao type of PPV fight, and the money that can be made by the networks is likely very small. It wouldn’t be surprising if the fight doesn’t even bring in 100,000 pay-per-view buys. If it’s going to be split between HBO and Showtime, then it could be even less money for the networks to make off the fight.
I don’t know that Stevenson and his adviser Al Haymon really want the fight against Kovalev. They have a good thing going with Stevenson attracting huge crowds for mismatches against guys like Tommy Karpency, Sakio Bika, Dmitry Sukhotsky, Andrzej Fonfara, Tony Bellew, Tavoris Cloud. With the kind of crowds that Stevenson is able to attract in Canada, there’s no real reason for him to risk losing his title against Kovalev. Stevenson is in the same situation that WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is in with him being able to fight anyone he likes and make good money without even needing to take risky fights against guys like Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs or Demetrius Andrade.
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