For a 3rd attempt, who's really ducking this WBC purse bid, HBO Kovalev or Kathy Duva

[i'm a fun haver]

It's a Network war, nothing to do with the individuals... Don't get blinded by corporate statement dictated to Duva, who is basically HBO secretary and has absolutely no power in there ...

HBO wants Haymon's @ss and the opposite is also true... Nothing will happen until both guys agree to meet secretly in a backstreet...

Sucks, really ...

In a street fight?
They'd find pieces of Stevenson in Kovalev's stool the next day lol

[Eff Pandas]

Clearly HBO & Duva's devotion to HBO is the issue. And probably rightfully so cuz I assume she's planning to be in the business longer than Kovalev will be & doing HBO wrong could prevent her & her future fighters from being on HBO.

Fighters tend to be followers more than leaders when it comes to the business side of boxing. I believe both Stevenson & Kovalev are just listening to their people & not fighting against those people in trying to make this fight, but would fight each other on the Home Shopping Network on the undercard of the new Samsung TV their selling if necessary. So either of those guys being named as a "ducker" is just fanboys for one side or the other talking their agenda filled bs.

HBO/Duva & PBC/GYM are all looking out for the best option with any fight they have ties to. It'd be stupid to suggest otherwise. Problem here is HBO/Duva won't play ball with PBC/GYM who seem willing to pay more for this fight, but this fight isn't on the scale of a Floyd vs Manny to make sides wanna come together to make the fight.

Really the only way to solve it is to have HBO/Duva & PBC/GYM agree to a purse bid that would allow the fight to take place wherever the winner of said purse bid wanted it to take place. At some point you are going against the sport of boxing to prevent a fight like this from taking place to protect your own business interest TOO MUCH & you just need to see who wants it bad enough.

HBO isn't used to being in this position so aren't a big fan of seeing it this way, but the reality is they got a dwindling budget & PBC has a massive budget & this is the way the rest of the people in the sport have been doing business forever its just that HBO has been living in a gated community for so long they don't wanna contend with how things are for everyone else.

I suspect too much dumb **** has gone on between these parties & it'll take one of them taking a L before one side decides this fight will be worth it. Or it just won't happen at all.

[MDPopescu]

... few days ago, there was a thread here about WBC inviting "all the parties involved" to sit down and find a solution in order to make this Kovalev-Stevenson fight eventually... In other words, WBC invited them to NEGOTIATE...

[mathed]

Stevenson just fought Tommy Karpency and Bika before that. Dude wants soft touches, he doesn't want to get krushed by Killa Kov.

[Eastcoast]

Michel responded, “We understand they have a contract with HBO, Adonis has fought for Showtime and [Premier Boxing Champions] platforms and, for the moment, we don’t feel it’s fair for the network that has supported Adonis since the last four, five fights to not be in the race, [at all], for the possibility of doing the biggest fight in that division.

That's some bull**** right there. HBO built Adonis Stevenson. They gave him the 3 biggest fights of his career - Dawson, Cloud, Bellew. Adonis ran to Showtime to avoid Kovalev and has milked them and the PBC ever since with soft-as-baby-**** fights.

[-PBP-]

If you take a side your a Stan boy.

Last year, Stevenson orchestrated the most clever, sophisticated duck in the history of boxing. Disgraceful behavior.

But this year, he grew a pair of balls. And the fight was set to go, but Team Kovalev backed out of the purse bid and ducked the fight.

These 2 fu*kers ducked each other. I've never seen anything like this.

[Dean_Razorback]

That's some bull**** right there. HBO built Adonis Stevenson. They gave him the 3 biggest fights of his career - Dawson, Cloud, Bellew. Adonis ran to Showtime to avoid Kovalev and has milked them and the PBC ever since with soft-as-baby-**** fights.

[NEETzsche]

If you take a side your a Stan boy.

Last year, Stevenson orchestrated the most clever, sophisticated duck in the history of boxing. Disgraceful behavior.

But this year, he grew a pair of balls. And the fight was set to go, but Team Kovalev backed out of the purse bid and ducked the fight.

These 2 fu*kers ducked each other. I've never seen anything like this.

there's no evidence that he grew a pair. haymon was obviously well aware that duva wouldn't let kovalev fight on pbc and basically pulled a pr coup. if by some miracle hbo had had the budget to call their bluff and outbid them, haymon would have pulled stevenson out just like duva did. it's all posturing. the only way it could maybe get made is with a dual hbo/showtime ppv, but gym are refusing to negotiate. sure, they could hypothetically get a bit more on pbc, but since that option is impossible the only way to get paid at all is on ppv. but evidently gym prefer their phony moral high ground to actually getting their fighter in the ring. easier to knock over a string of tommy karpencys for $750k a pop than gamble the whole operation for probably $3m or so

[-PBP-]

there's no evidence that he grew a pair. haymon was obviously well aware that duva wouldn't let kovalev fight on pbc and basically pulled a pr coup. if by some miracle hbo had had the budget to call their bluff and outbid them, haymon would have pulled stevenson out just like duva did. it's all posturing. the only way it could maybe get made is with a dual hbo/showtime ppv, but gym are refusing to negotiate. sure, they could hypothetically get a bit more on pbc, but since that option is impossible the only way to get paid at all is on ppv. but evidently gym prefer their phony moral high ground to actually getting their fighter in the ring. easier to knock over a string of tommy karpencys for $750k a pop than gamble the whole operation for probably $3m or so

Then why not call his bluff and outbid him? I thought Kovalev had this Russian trillionaire that was going to bid for him?

[Eastcoast]

If you take a side your a Stan boy.

Last year, Stevenson orchestrated the most clever, sophisticated duck in the history of boxing. Disgraceful behavior.

But this year, he grew a pair of balls. And the fight was set to go, but Team Kovalev backed out of the purse bid and ducked the fight.

These 2 fu*kers ducked each other. I've never seen anything like this.

That's BS spin. GYM requested the purse bid rather than to set up through negotiation. ME purposely asked them to hold-off the purse bid and to negotiate but GYM refused.

It's really simple if GYM/Haymon want it - they make an outrageous offer to HBO, if HBO rejects it then GYM/Haymon are free to take the fight to PBC/Showtime. It's so freaking simple, and yet they forced the purse bid to kill the fight and then people like you choose to ignore that and spin it like Kovalev's ducking. GTFO.....