By Bill "Two Scoops" Emes
According to Main Events CEO Kathy Duva, she may very well pursue some legal satisfaction in the wake of Adonis Stevenson's recent decision to jump over to Showtime.
Duva had previously advised BoxingScene.com that she was confident that a deal was reached in January with Stevenson's promoter, Yvon Michel, to do a light heavyweight unification between Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev in the fall.
In 2013, HBO spent a lot of time and money in building a Stevenson-Kovalev clash by showcasing both boxers numerous times on their network.
Earlier this week, Stevenson made a decision to jump over to rival network Showtime - after HBO refused to match Showtime's monetary offer for Stevenson's upcoming defense against Andrzej Fonfara on May 24th.
Kovalev, who knocked out Cedric Agnew on Saturday night, is now left without his expected fall mega-fight.
Next week, Duva will sit down with her lawyers and make a decision on whether or not her company is going to sue Michel for breaching what she believes was a valid agreement for a Stevenson-Kovalev fight.
Duva says there is evidence, by way of email, that a deal was reached with Michel in January.
It should be noted that Michel confirms that he indeed, as the promoter, reached a deal with Duva, but he says Stevenson had never agreed to the terms. Although Michel had no issues with Duva's terms for the fight, he says Stevenson rejected the proposal and wanted more money. Duva disputes Michel's version of the story, stating that Michel told her that his boxer was indeed on board.
"It is our position that we have a valid agreement with Yvon Michel to do a fight with Adonis Stevenson in September...in the fall I should say. We are going to reserve all of our rights and protect them vigorously as we always do. We'll make a decision next week on how we're going to proceed," Duva told BoxingScene.com.
"I'm going to leave that to the lawyers. I am quite sure that everything will work out the way it's supposed to. I'm not going to rule out anything at this point."
