Is everyone ducking Artur Bietriev?

[BigZ44]

They're all ducking him! Nobody has ever fought Bietriev, even Beterbiev is scared of him!!! Bietriev is the most ducked fighter in the history of boxing, can't get ANYONE in the ring with him!

[g27region]

HBO was willing to take those L's because Kovalev had three belts and , pre-Saul Alvarez coming over, had committed their boxing franchise behind featuring Golovkin, Kovalev, and Lomachenko.

Kovalev, with the Ward L on his record and no world title belts around his waist, would be quite unlikely to get any type of serious investment from HBO, especially knowing that he can't move tickets.

WBC champ Adonis Stevenson is on the other side, WBA/IBF/WBO champ Andre Ward is looking to be on the verge of heading to the other side; Beterbiev (IBF top challenger), Cleverly (wba champ and WBA top challenger), Elieder Alvarez (WBC top challenger), Marcus Browne, Andrzej Fonfara, and Badou Jack are on the other side. Sean Monaghan seems to have linked up with Lou DiBella and Joe Smith Jr is with Joe DeGuardia (who does a ton of business with Lou in New York), and that's before counting the fast rising international talents with no current allegiance to a broadcaster in the US.

Why does he "have to fight somebody", when near all of the juice in the division is not with HBO?

Floyd has Gervonta Davis, IBF 130lb champ, in a division where 9 of the top 10 fighters at the weight are on the other side of the fence.

Floyd's seeming plan to work around that? Take Davis on the road, fighting him against his mandatory where it likely made the most money, and then keeping the talk focused on simply developing Davis into the best fighter that he can be (with no doubt having eyes on solid enough guys like Jhonny Gonzalez, Fernando David Saucedo, Martin Joseph Ward, and Billy Dib, or even the novelty of fighting JuanMa Lopez, and fighting Tevin Farmer.

Showtime won't likely be interesting in broadcasting any of those fights on their own (even though he's got talent, the only one I see coming close would be a Farmer fight, and even that's pretty sketch), but Floyd/Haymon are connected enough that getting the fight placed as a co-feature to another big fight, (or simply helping draw the audience for another meaningful fight that doesn't really have a place to draw from) shouldn't be too difficult a workaround.

Sergey Kovalev without a single world title around his waist (and the paths to getting one far from easy, for him or HBO) is worth far less to HBO than you seem to want to acknowledge

That's why I've been saying Kovalev's career is DEAD after that Ward fight, people can forget about Kovalev already, we won't see him in relevant fights anymore

[Scipio2009]

did you forget when beterbum turned down 500k to fight kovalev? years later and hes still fighting for 200k.

The fight is worth well more to Beterbiev than $500k, the money for the fight is with Beterbiev's camp, and the IBF situation being what it is made it absolutely unnecessary to rush into anything.

Beterbiev is two fights into his run of headlining his own shows, with one of the most bankable boxing markets being his adopted home region; I'm not in the man's pocket but if you honestly think he's still fighting for $200k a go, you're fooling yourself.

Beterbiev is the IBF's #1 contender, Kovalev got knocked off his perch, and the situation may just line up that Beterbiev's due mandatory shot will come for the undisputed light heavyweight championship of the world.

[Scipio2009]

and you think hbo wants to keep dealing with ward...is nearly impossible to deal with since he simply wont fight good fighters unless he gets some kind of huge amazing deal that drains their budget. on top of that no one wants to watch him. oh no please dont leaveee

Ward crossing the street would give Showtime control of the full light heavyweight division, with near all of the viable challengers already with Showtime or affiliated to folks working with Showtime.

"impossible to deal with" or whatever, what incentive would their be for HBO to even bother with light heavyweight fights with Ward gone with the belts? Kovalev could fight Barrera or Gvozdyk, but even winning those fights would leave HBO in a spot where a fighter that they'd spent extra money broadcasting would be forced off of the channel, into a fight where they're not all that likely to win.

Showtime basically has none of the top talent at 130lbs, and their actions have gone accordingly (acknowledging that Gervonta Davis is a good 130lb fighter); they aired Pedraza-Davis as a co-feature to their hyped Degale-Jack fight (with Pedraza's entire 130lb title run being as a co-feature), Showtime is unlikely to air Davis-Walsh from the UK (unless they can secure a big event stateside for that date), and any other Davis fight, from that point on, will likely be in support of another bigger fight until Davis can prove to draw money in the DMV.

Outside of Floyd taking a risk and David knocking off Lomachenko in a unification fight, you're unlikely to see Showtime commit any real money behind featuring fights at 130lbs (unless fighters in Showtime's stacked 126lb division choose to move up).

There's money on the table for Ward, even if HBO is unwilling to pay it, and everyone knows it.

[Scipio2009]

That's why I've been saying Kovalev's career is DEAD after that Ward fight, people can forget about Kovalev already, we won't see him in relevant fights anymore

For the types of fights that Kovalev basically has available to him, his best bet at this point, imo, would be to set up shop in Russia and build his profile in his home country, tbh.

Be a matinee fighter on HBO (HBO should be able to afford that) and hope to build a massive drawing ability in Russia.

Or move up to cruiserweight (which would actually give him something to build towards stateside)