Comments Thread For: WBC Investigating Adonis Stevenson and Lack of Mandatories

[vitali1999]

Yeah they should also be investigating bum squad wilder and hIs lack of mandatories as well. Two frauds under the same organisation

[Throwingbombs]

WBC "WE BE CROOKS" the most corrupt of all the sanctioning bodies. The Stevenson and Wilder mandatory situations are evidence of this, complete joke of an organisation

[Cinci Champ]

The author of this article should be fired. Kovalev's HBO contract expired before the purse bid.

they may of edited it but it says he was negotiating a new deal with hbo meaning he wasnt actually under contract for the purse bid something most of us already knew

[Commie]

WBC: it's time to pimp the chimp pimp

[Commie]

Julito Chavez / Canelito also kept that green belt hostage

[Boxing Scene]

Strip him, period. No need to even investigate. He's irrelevant, give his title to someone else.

[SchoolTheseCats]

Bum at 160 who was mando to ggg kept doing samething taking step aside fees until Charlo finally knocked him off, at end of day it’s the fighter fought with mando bs if u want your title shot take it

[Chrismart]

It's been a mess of a situation, that's for sure.

[BodiesInFlight]

What's to investigate? Just order a mandatory, no?

[Boxing Logic]

The author of this article should be fired. Kovalev's HBO contract expired before the purse bid.

Duva addressed this in a recent interview. Kovalev's contract with HBO was about to run out after his upcoming fight at the time, which would have then made Kovalev a free agent and allowed his promoter, Kathy Duva, to participate in the WBC purse bid, originally scheduled afterwards per normal WBC rules, for a Kovalev-Stevenson fight on either HBO or Showtime. Knowing this, what did Al Haymon do? Al Haymon petitioned the WBC to move the purse bid up a crazy, unprecedented amount of time, BEFORE Kovalev's next and final fight on his HBO contract fight took place, because Al Haymon KNEW Team Kovalev (Kathy Duva) would not be able to participate in the purse bid for Kovalev-Stevenson if he was still tied to HBO for one more fight.

So this "purse bid" myth that misinformed people keep bringing up as proof that Kovalev prevented the fight with Stevenson is actually just another example of Team Stevenson finding creative ways to prevent the fight. But that wasn't the first or the last time they prevented it. I am going to give this one final attempt to go over the facts, from the first Kovalev-Stevenson negotiations to the last, so that hopefully, these ridiculous myths can stop being repeated ever again.

The first time Team Kovalev offered to make the fight with Stevenson was in 2014, when they were both at HBO, but Stevenson declined and fought Bellew for less money.

That was SUPERDUCK 1.

Then Team Kovalev and HBO tried to make the fight next again, but again Stevenson refused, wanting to fight Fonfara instead, again for less money.

That was SUPERDUCK 2.

But Kovalev wanted to fight Stevenson so bad, Duva still kept negotiating, and Kovalev's promoter even came to an agreement with Stevenson's promoter Yvon Michel, as proven in their email conversation here (http://www.boxingscene.com/details-f...lawsuit--77298)!

"Ms. Duva did so, and at roughly 4:27 p.m. on January 23, 2014, wrote to Mr. Michel that, ‘This is acceptable to us. I have just spoken to Sergey’s manager. We have a deal on our end.’ … Some 3 ˝ hours later, Mr. Michel replied to Ms. Duva with the following: ‘We also have a deal on our side!!:-) Let’s make a good sale to HBO and Peter new! [sic] Can you make sure this between us until we find the most timing to make an announcement?’"

Duva and Stevenson's promoter had come to a deal to make Kovalev-Stevenson... that's when Stevenson pulled out the #1 Ace Ducker Card in all of boxing. He brought in Al Haymon, likely due to Haymon getting his puppets at Showtime to overpay for the Fonfara fight if Stevenson would sign with him, which would allow Haymon to add another "valuable" "asset" to his stable to help him attract investors (which turned out to be Waddell and Reed) whose money was supposed to allow him to monopolize boxing and start his own league with tons of PPV fights (so much for "free boxing for all" to pay back his investors with... but that's another story that is better explained in the link I posted...

But HBO was so committed to making Kovalev-Stevenson, it even agreed to match Showtime's ridiculous, possibly corrupt offer for Stevenson-Fonfara, so long as Stevenson would agree to fight Kovalev afterwards. But he refused to do that as well! Even with the Fonfara offer matched!

That was SUPERDUCK 3.

There are also conflicting stories about separate three-fight deals both Kovalev and Stevenson were negotiating with HBO that would have included fighting each other, but the details that match from all sides are that Kovalev signed to fight Stevenson without hesitation, with no outrageous demands, but that Stevenson never once agreed to fight Kovalev, and kept coming back to HBO asking for more and more money, until HBO finally refused. Stevenson's team of course claims that if HBO hadn't finally refused their last of many demands, that that would have been the deal Stevenson would have finally accepted... if not for HBO... but just look at Stevenson's track record and see if you still believe that.

But even after Stevenson ran to Showtime, Team Kovalev still wanted the fight so badly that they still tried to chase him down, taking the rare step of petitioning the WBC to force Stevenson to fight them. And it would have worked, too! Kovalev became Stevenson's mandatory. Kovalev only had one fight left on his HBO contract, and the purse bid was scheduled for a week or three after his final HBO fight. If Stevenson had wanted to fight Kovalev, all Stevenson had to do was wait for the purse bid which was already scheduled on a fair, neutral, normal date, per normal WBC guidelines.

But you all know the story by now! Team Stevenson didn't do that! Knowing Kovalev was still locked into an exclusive three-fight contract with HBO until his third and final fight with them took place, Team Stevenson got the purse bid moved up before that fight took place, because they knew Kovalev would not be able to take part in a purse bid that could obligate him to fight on another network while he was still locked into an exclusive contract with HBO.

If Team Stevenson wanted to fight Kovalev, they knew all they had to do was wait for the purse bid after his final HBO fight. If they wanted to squash the Kovalev-Stevenson fight for the fourth time, they knew they had to get their buddies at the WBC to move up the purse bid to a date before his exclusive HBO deal was up. They chose the squash the fight.

That was SUPERDUCK 4.

And so their buddies at the WBC did just that. They moved the purse bid for a fighter's future fight up all the way to before his currently scheduled fight had taken place, a strange, unprecedented, nonsensical, highly su****ious move, but one with a clear purpose, for those who were both paying attention and capable of looking at the facts with a clear head, rather than bias.

But guess what! Kovalev was such a Champion, he still didn't give up on trying to make the fight! Even after Kovalev re-signed with HBO once it became clear that Stevenson would not agree to fight him immediately, which had been the only interest Team Kovalev had in momentarily seeking free agency back then, Duva has gone on record that she and Stevenson's promoter Yvon Michel still tried to make the fight again in the aftermath of Team Stevenson and the WBC preventing Kovalev from taking part in the purse bid as a free agent.

Whenever negotiations would begin in the months after the purse bid fell apart, Duva would always tell Michel negotiations, "the fight now has to happen on HBO. If you or Al are not OK with that, then let's not even waste time negotiating right now," and Michel would agree, and say that Al had no problem with Stevenson fighting on HBO. And once again, she and Michel agreed to ALL TERMS, down to whose name would be first on the poster and who would walk out last. Everything! She said this on record. Only for Michel to then come back, at the very end, and say, "Actually, Al says the fight has to happen on Showtime."

But wouldn't you know, Adonis Stevenson has fought multiple times since then off of Showtime. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: SUPERDUCK 5.

Adonis Stevenson has ducked Sergey Kovalev five separate times now, in a vast array of different and creative ways. Sergey Kovalev has never ducked Stevenson once. Kovalev even officially agreed to fight Stevenson all the way back in 2014, as shown in the emails between Duva and Michel quoted earlier.

I can't believe it's almost 2018 and I am still having to take time to explain the facts of what happened to people. Even for people who don't pay that much attention, it should have been obvious years ago just from their attitudes and actions who has been chasing this fight, and who has been running from it. Yet, you have people on NSB to this day who still haven't caught on to how Team Stevenson duped them with the "Kovalev ducked the purse bid" bit of propaganda.

So let me get this straight, you know from legal documents that Kovalev agreed to fight Stevenson in 2014, and you also know that Stevenson blatantly ducked Kovalev four times, but because there is this fifth time he ducked Kovalev where he was able to murky up the waters a little bit and force Kovalev to be the one to drop out of a purse bid that only existed in the first place because KOVALEV pushed for it, not vice versa, now you're going to try to tell yourself that the whole thing is a wash, or that this proves Kovalev was the one ducking all along?

I don't understand it. I don't understand how people can be this biased, or so easily fooled. I mean, it's one thing to be fooled be a talented deceiver, especially if you don't spend much time fact-checking their story, but it's another thing to lie to yourself. I feel like some posters actually do know the details of this situation, but just choose to keep pretending. Kovalev is the guy who agreed to fight Artur Beterbiev as a ****ing regular HBO tuneup homecoming fight for Andre Ward, risking his big payday later in the year if he had lost, and yet people actually think he would duck the Stevenson fight on pay-per-view?

I just don't understand it. I don't. Most of us knew Kovalev wanted the fight and Stevenson didn't ever since the first time Max Kellerman asked each of them if they wanted to fight each other, and Kovalev said bring it on, while Stevenson tried to change the subject to any other name in the division besides Kovalev. Most people knew the score way back then, before any information about negotiations had been leaked, but now 4 years have passed and all this information has been leaked proving Stevenson is the one who ducked Kovalev, and yet some posters still can't figure it out, or worse, have the whole thing completely backwards? Like how? And if some "boxing fans" can't even figure this situation out, which is like the most obvious one in boxing history, then what hope is there for them to ever figure out all the other, much more complicated situations? As long as such a large segment of boxing fans remains this gullible and so easily manipulated, certain promoters will continue to take advantage of that and line their pockets at the expense of the sport and the very fans who defend them them because they don't know any better.

It's like that movie Donnie Brasco, if anyone has seen it. The undercover cop was so good at pretending, that even after the police told the mob guys he had been working with that he was an undercover cop, the mob guys still defended him because he was that convincing. But at least there, it was because he was a genuinely good guy deep down or something, or at least that's how the movie portrayed it, and he had developed real friendships with those mob guys, or something like that. It's been awhile since I saw the movie. Yes he had conned them or fooled them, but there had also been something real about him. At least, the way the movie tells it.

This is different. These fans are being conned in a completely fake way. They are being used, and yet they are still on here, years later, defending the people conning them. Not only did Team Stevenson duck the Kovalev fight, but in four years they have delivered such great fights to their fans as Tavoris Cloud (who that "50 year old" BHop Stevenson fans always describe him as when referencing Kovalev's win over him completely schooled), Tony Bellew (lost to Nathan Cleverley, drew with Isaac Chilemba, but this is supposedly Stevenson's best win), Andrzej Fonfara twice (knocked out by Derrick Findley and Joe Smith), Dmitry Sukhotsky (lost to Jurgen Brahmer, Cornelius White, Dilmurod Satybaldiev, and Steve Geffrard), Sakio Bika (lost to Sam Soliman at middleweight and others), Thomas Karpency (lost to Fonfara by TKO, and to Cleverley and Murat by UD. Murat also got schooled by "old Hopkins"), and Thomas Williams Jr. (who was knocked out by Gabriel Campillo after everyone said Campillo was shot because Kovalev destroyed him in 3 rounds).

And yet, you still have people on here defending him and parroting "purse bid purse bid purse bid," completely oblivious to the fact that the purse bid is just yet another example of Team Kovalev trying every creative strategy possible to make the fight these people claim they wanted to see, and Team Stevenson finding new and creative ways to prevent the fight from being made.

Please stop letting them fool and manipulate you so easily! Not only does it hurt our ability as a community of boxing fans on NSB to talk with each other about the sport on the same wavelength, but it directly damages the sport as well when the boxers and teams most responsible for preventing the best fights that the sports needs to happen for it to thrive have large groups of fans defending the status quo because they don't know any better. The facts are out there! They are available! 4 years later, there are very few excuses left for not knowing what really happened in this situation! Please wise up and start being honest with yourselves about who is lying to you! If you claim to "love boxing" like so many fans do, and doing it for yourself is not enough of a reason, then at do it for the sport, please!