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By Rick Reeno - Back on July 2nd, BoxingScene.com ran an article where IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32KOs) revealed his intention to face WBO champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23KOs) in an HBO televised unification.
Very few people took the article seriously. Almost everyone in the industry expected Hopkins to face WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20KOs) in the fall.
For most of 2013, HBO was building up a unification fight between Kovalev and Stevenson.
Earlier this year, Stevenson jumped ship to rival network Showtime, with the obvious goal of facing Hopkins, who at that point was exclusively fighting on their network. Kathy Duva of Main Events, who felt confident that she reached an agreement with promoter Yvon Michel for a Stevenson-Kovalev unification on HBO, filed a federal lawsuit against Michel, Stevenson, Showtime, Stevenson's manager Al Haymon and former Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer.
Stevenson made his Showtime televised debut on May 24th, and won a twelve round unanimous decision over Andrzej Fonfara.
At the time of the BoxingScene article, nearly six weeks after Stevenson's Showtime debut, Hopkins confirmed that not a single "serious" conversation had taken place to make a fall unification with Stevenson. [Click Here To Read More]
Very few people took the article seriously. Almost everyone in the industry expected Hopkins to face WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20KOs) in the fall.
For most of 2013, HBO was building up a unification fight between Kovalev and Stevenson.
Earlier this year, Stevenson jumped ship to rival network Showtime, with the obvious goal of facing Hopkins, who at that point was exclusively fighting on their network. Kathy Duva of Main Events, who felt confident that she reached an agreement with promoter Yvon Michel for a Stevenson-Kovalev unification on HBO, filed a federal lawsuit against Michel, Stevenson, Showtime, Stevenson's manager Al Haymon and former Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer.
Stevenson made his Showtime televised debut on May 24th, and won a twelve round unanimous decision over Andrzej Fonfara.
At the time of the BoxingScene article, nearly six weeks after Stevenson's Showtime debut, Hopkins confirmed that not a single "serious" conversation had taken place to make a fall unification with Stevenson. [Click Here To Read More]
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