Comments Thread For: Kovalev: I Hope Somebody Beats Stevenson, Fights Me

[-PBP-]

If there is a God awful card airing tonight, it's the PBC card, no denying that.

And this thread is about Kovalev so that's the God awful card I will discuss here.

[Eff Pandas]

Neither guy or side wanted the fight bad enough is the real story here. Stevenson & his side chose money over Kovalev, Kovalev & his side chose HBO over Stevenson. Business-wise I can't fault either side too much at the end of the day. Stevenson is an old ass mfer & wanted his money today instead of tomorrow & Kovalev is a fun guy to watch & feels like HBO can make him a star tomorrow sometime so didn't wanna take the best possible option for himself today is basically what it all breaks down to.

HBO is kinda the bigger culprit of this fight not happening in my eyes than either fighters side is. They coulda paid Stevenson what Stevenson felt he was worth back pre-split & they coulda made more effort to support Kovalev in making this fight on or off HBO. Duva bears some fault cuz she seemed to have the perfect in between contract situation to make this fight & than resign with HBO post-fight, but she didn't have the balls (literally) to attempt that. And while I'm not Duva's biggest fan I can completely understand her bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush strategic approach here even if I feel like Kov would have won + been able to parlay HBO into signing him for even more money afterwards than he's getting now.

[Eff Pandas]

If there is a God awful card airing tonight, it's the PBC card, no denying that.

I like the Shimmell vs Thomas fight on the PBC card. Thats probably the fight I'm looking forward to the most today.

[Tobi.G]

God awful card? How is it awful?

You trying to tell us that Beibut Shumenov-Bj Flores for a vacant cruiser title and Isiah Thomas-Jordan Shimmell is a better card than Sergey Kovalev-Nadjib Mohammedi for Kovalev's IBF/WBO/WBA light heavyweight titles and Jean Pascal-Yunieski Gonzalez?

Or if Stevenson fights a phukking SMW like Edwin Rodriguez in his next title defense at LHW, that would be a better fight? In case you forgot, Stevenson just fought another SMW who moved up to face him when he fought Bika. That is the precise action of a ducker man.

Come on dude, only a "fan boy" would think such a thing.

Well, its obvious that hes trolling.

[King Man]

Kind of a ***** move to hope someone else beats your rival

Very reminiscent of Mayweather lol

[saintpat]

The fight couldn't happen because Kovalev is contractually signed to HBO, Adonis does not have a contract with Showtime but he is affiliated with Showtime and obviously PBC. Had it gone to a purse bid no way in hell would duva out-due Haymon. Had it gone to a purse bid and Haymon won, fight would have not happened because Kovalev has a contract with HBO. Only way it would happen is if HBO/Showtime work together same as with May/Pac but no way that would have happened because the fight is not as massive as the May/Pac. Kovalev would thrash Stevenson anyway. Kovalev has a better resume...HBO made Stevenson. Ever since he switched to Haymon he's been fighting unknowns except for Fonfara who gave him a hell of a fight.

Then Duva shouldn't have forced the purse bid without HBO's backing. They have enough money to outbid PBC, but didn't want to put their money behind Kova/Duva. Simple as that.

And the HBO contract is a dodge ... HBO has let fighters out of their exclusive contracts before when they weren't interested in certain mandatory defenses. So they could have done so here ... if they didn't win the bid, they could let Kova fight off their network, just as they have done in cases where they weren't interested in one of their fighters' mandatory defenses.

Basically Kova is saying he hopes someone else beats Stevenson because his people don't believe in him enough or aren't committed to him enough to invest in him by putting up enough money to bid for the biggest fight out there for him on the open market and pay market value.

The funny thing is within a day or two you have Duva saying "I hope Hamon runs out of money" and Kova saying "I hope someone else beats Stevenson" ... because their side doesn't have enough backing to compete.

HBO would rather pay small coin and keep Kova as a cheap attraction fighting bums than invest in trying to make him a major PPV star.