Artur Beterbiev Ducks Sergey Kovalev Despite Call Out

By Travis “Novel” Fleming

Contrary to a statement released last week by Yvon Michel who promotes rising power punching star Artur Beterbiev, 8-0, 8 KO’s, it would appear that team Beterbiev are not willing to face light heavyweight champion, and former amateur rival, Sergey Kovalev, 28-01, 25 KO’s, in November in Russia. This is extremely disappointing news as it is one of the best fights that can be made in boxing, a legitimate grudge match since Beterbiev holds two amateur victories over Kovalev, who has since gone on to establish himself as one of the best pound for pound talents in boxing in the professional ranks. These are two of the hardest punchers in the sport, and with both being Russian, it would have been an absolutely massive event in Russia this November with its two best professional fighters squaring off in the most significant bout in Russian boxing history. With both fighters being based in North America now, it is unlikely that another opportunity to play out this grudge match in their home country will present itself anytime soon.

After Kovalev easily, and expectedly, dispatched of mandatory challenger Nadjib Mohammedi, 37-4, 23 KO’s, with a third round knockout a couple of weekends back, Beterbiev’s promoter Yvon Michel released a statement which indicated that Beterbiev is willing to fight Kovalev in Russia in November. He even stated that, although Beterbiev is a PBC fighter, he would be willing to accept the B side of the promotion as a challenger, and he’d be willing to fight on HBO, the network that Kovalev is contractually obligated to fight on until mid 2017. Michel’s only stipulation was that they be given a fair offer that doesn’t include any options on Beterbiev that would commit him to further fights on HBO, save for a rematch clause of which he claimed Beterbiev was more than willing to accept as a challenger.

With Kovalev running out of legitimate challengers at 175 pounds due his exclusive deal with HBO, this must have been very welcoming news to him and his promoter Kathy Duva as they promptly answered Michel with an offer for the November date in Russia. On Wednesday of this week, Michel released another statement, this one in response to Duva’s offer. In it, he said Duva’s offer was very fair and what they were looking for, but that after speaking with Beterbiev’s trainer they decided to decline it for now because his trainer wants Beterbiev to have one more fight before facing such a challenge only eight fights into his professional career. It makes sense to want more professional experience before facing one of the best professionals on earth, but this also screams DUCK, which wouldn’t be so bad if team Beterbiev didn’t make a public challenge only to turn around and say “no thanks, not yet” when their challenge and terms were accepted. It then becomes evident that Michel threw out the challenge with the intent of fooling boxing fans and media into believing they were ready for Kovalev now. Michel was likely hoping that HBO and Duva wouldn’t be willing to agree to his stipulation of no further options, which would cause the offer to be rejected so they would have been able to move along with the career of Beterbiev appearing like true bad asses that tried to make a fight with, and got ducked by, the most dangerous man in boxing in Kovalev. Michel also threw in the lame excuse of Beterbiev needing more time than November to recover from his Ramadan fasting, despite welterweight contender Amir Khan, 31-3, 19 KO’s, stating that September would be ample time for him to recover from Ramadan to face Floyd Mayweather Jr, 48-0, 26 KO’s.

These are terrible excuses from team Beterbiev. They are obviously planning on more than just one more bout of professional seasoning before considering a fight with Kovalev as there’s no way just one fight will make much of a difference in Beterbiev’s development. If he’s not ready now, he won’t be after just one more fight either. It’s another bluff to avoid criticism. You can be all but guaranteed that this fight is at least 3-5 fights down the line for Beterbiev.

Why wait one more fight when the opportunity to stage the biggest fight ever between Russians has a Russian date on lock for November? There is absolutely no point in skiping over this November fight in Russia if team Beterbiev is truthful about their willingness to face Kovalev after just one more as that would mean they would square off in North America to less fan fare, while robbing their countrymen of their biggest boxing event in history.

Due to boxing politics that prevent many great fights from happening on time, I don’t like to throw around the word duck when referring to elite level fighters who themselves are not afraid of fighting anyone. It’s the promoters, networks, and managers that, in their best financial interests, are typically the result of preventing two willing combatants from squaring off. Given the statements from Yvon Michel, however, it’s hard for me to label this situation as anything other than a blatant duck.

Now, once again, one of boxing’s best champions, and top pound for pound fighters, has no one legitimate to fight until Andre Ward, 28-0, 15 KO’s, moves up to light heavyweight, which is at least a year and a half to two years away. In a division with extremely intriguing match ups for Kovalev against Beterbiev and kingpin Adonis Stevenson, 26-1, 21 KO’s, Kovalev is being frozen out of legitimate fights in his prime and it’s a damn shame because he’s getting older and, with his HBO contract extended until mid 2017, it would appear that he only has one potential foe of any significance for the next two years.

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