By Steve Kim
Andre Ward faces Sullivan Barrera this Saturday night from the Oracle in Oakland, California. If he should come out victorious as expected, it puts him one step closer to a showdown with unified light heavyweight champion, Sergey Kovalev.
Kovalev (29-0-1, 26KOs), who is coming off his second victory over Jean Pascal on January 30th, is scheduled to fight again in June in his native country.
Kathy Duva, the head of Main Events told BoxingScene.com on Monday afternoon - "I had conversations with the Russians today and we're making plans, moving forward. Of course they're very busy working on the plans for (Alexander) Povetkin. I don't know if they expected it to be in Russia all along."
Povetkin is scheduled to challenge WBC heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder on May 21st in Russia.
"So they're busy with that but they're turning their attention to this, this week. So hopefully we'll have more information soon,"said Duva, who says that Kovalev - the owner of the WBA, IBF and WBO belts - will be making a voluntary defense this time around.
The time frame for Kovalev-Ward (should all go well in the next fight or two) is for them to meet in November.
"The agreement we have is that neither will fight anyone else after June,"explained Duva."So unless we amend that agreement, June is the deadline. We can always get together and decide to move it to July - if both sides agree. But right now, that's the way it's written."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.