Sergey Kovalev Set to Waste Two Years of His Late Prime: Make Sure to Read This CLOSELY Kathy Duva!

By Travis “Novel” Fleming

It would appear that Kathy Duva, who thus far has done a great job handling WBO, WBA, and IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev, 27-0-1, 24 KO’s, has let her stubbornness and bitterness prevail over enhancing Kovalev’s career. Kovalev is one of the best champions in boxing, a legit pound for pound talent with underrated skills and intangibles to go along with his devastating power that I rate as the deadliest in the sport.

Kovalev has had an incredible run that included a knockout of former champ Gabriel Campillo, then snatching his first world title, the WBO belt, from reigning champ Nathan Cleverly by brutal stoppage, defending it with three straight KO’s, handing living legend Bernard Hopkins the most comprehensive loss of his career and in the process taking Hopkins’ IBF and WBA titles, and finally defending all three by giving the notoriously iron chinned former champion Jean Pascal his first stoppage loss. Duva deserves all the credit in the world for mapping out this impressive run, but now, unfortunately, there is no one left for him to fight. This is not because there is a lack of worthy challenges at 175 pounds, it’s a direct result of Duva’s poor decision making with regards to her star charge. While there are legit challenges out there, Kovalev will likely be stuck facing no hopers and scoring easy knockouts.
A fight between Kovalev and power punching light heavyweight king Adonis Stevenson, 26-1, 21 KO’s, is one of the most anticipated fights in boxing, but will now likely never happen because of Duva. Another mouth watering clash between fellow undefeated deadly punching Russian Artur Beterbiev, 9-0, 9 KO’s, is another bout that looks like it won’t be going down in the foreseeable future, which is a damn shame because they have a legitimate score to settle from the amateur ranks where Beterbiev beat Kovalev twice. Now, it would seem that one of boxing’s most exciting talents will be relegated to fighting “gimme” opponents for the foreseeable future, with one exception, and shockingly, Duva has practically admitted so much.

Duva recently went as far as saying that fans will tune in to watch the Krusher no matter who he fights because like Mike Tyson and Gennady Golovkin, he is a knockout puncher, and that’s what people want to see. She also insinuated that it will be interesting to see if Kovalev can stay motivated for lesser fights. This to me screams “get ready for a bunch of easy knockouts” while wasting the prime of his career in fights that do nothing for his legacy.

The reason these significant fights cannot happen are because the best challenges in and around 175 pounds are all signed by Al Haymon. Al Haymon and HBO refuse to work together, meaning any fighter with an HBO exclusive contract is likely not going to be fighting a Haymon fighter because their network won’t allow it. Duva is well aware of this fact and what’s shocking is that instead of looking elsewhere with Kovalev when his HBO contract was up earlier this year, she extended his contract until mid 2017 when Kovalev will be 34 years old. Al Haymon has working relationships with many promoters of Duva’s caliber that have come together to put their fighters in with Haymon fighters on NBC, ShowTime, CBS, ESPN and other networks in order to give their fighters the best fights, but Duva doesn’t want to play ball for reasons unbeknownst to most.

Before extending their HBO contract, it looked like a battle between Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson was all but guaranteed for later this year. A guaranteed war that fans have been demanding for over a year and a half, and one of the most exciting match ups in boxing. In order to make the fight happen, Duva lobbied the WBC, Stevenson being the WBC champion, to instate the winner of Kovalev versus Pascal earlier this year as the mandatory challenger for Stevenson.

The WBC broke their own rules and obliged because they, like the rest of the boxing world, also wanted to see a fight between the two top light heavyweights in the world. Kovalev, of course, became the first person to stop Pascal, making himself the mandatory for Stevenson, and a purse bid for a bout between Kovalev and Stevenson was set for last April. This is exactly what Duva had hoped to achieve by getting Kovalev instated as Stevenson’s mandatory in an unprecedented manner, yet days before the purse bid went down, Duva pulled out of the bid fearing that Al Haymon would win which meant the fight would not be on HBO thus killing one the best fights in the sport.

It is unclear what, if any, were Kovalev’s contractual obligations to HBO at the time of the purse bid, but being that he later signed an extension through to mid 2017, it would appear that at the time he was able to fight on any network he’d pleased for his next bout. This left the boxing world scratching their collective skulls wondering why she would go through all the trouble to make Kovalev a mandatory challenger only to pull out of the purse bid and sign an extension with HBO that would ensure the fight couldn’t happen until after 2017, at the very earliest, when Kovalev would be 34 and Stevenson would be 39, and past his prime.

The good news is that Duva has been in talks with one of the top pound for pound fighters in the world in Andre Ward, 28-0, 15 KO’s, and both camps agree that a fight between Ward and Kovalev is imminent, but likely not until late 2016, early 2017. That leaves a good year and a half where Kovalev will have no formidable challenges. And after Ward, win or lose, if he remains with Duva and HBO, it will be more of the same unless an unlikely super talent emerges that doesn’t get signed by Al Haymon like everyone else. At age 32, Kovalev is already nearing the age where fighters begin to decline. He might be one of those special talents that can still have success in his late thirties, but in all likelihood he’s human and starts declining by age 35 or 36, meaning he’s got another 3-4 years left at his peak and at least two of them will be wasted in this new HBO contract, perhaps more if they opt to move forward with another extension. The guaranteed money offered for this new HBO deal must have been quite significant to risk legacy building in his prime years. Going through the list of potential foes that are able to fight on HBO at light heavyweight, even including some possible super middleweights that can move up, leaves one with the impression that we are never going to see Kovalev’s true potential.

Sadly, the biggest fight that’s easy to make is an underwhelming rematch with Jean Pascal. Other ranked light heavyweights he could fight are Juergen Braehmer, Isaac Chilemba, Thomas Oosthuizen, Edwin Rodriguez, Dmitry Sukhotsky, Tommy Karpency, Erik Skoglund, and a shot Chad Dawson. Hardly a murderers row, or anyone that will enhance his legacy. As a big fan of Kovalev this is disappointing because he has the potential to be a hall of famer but won’t get there with this kind of opposition.

I understand that up until this year Duva has done a masterful job of maneuvering Kovalev through the ranks, and he no doubt feels a debt of gratitude and loyalty to Duva for taking a chance on a young unproven Russian then taking him to the upper echelon of the boxing world, but at this point, after extending with HBO, there’s nothing more she can do for him that couldn’t be bested by another promoter with a working relationship with Haymon, or by Haymon himself. Here’s to hoping Kovalev is still fresh after 2017, and he decides to make a move that benefits his legacy. The unfortunate part is that by that time Stevenson will likely be a faded fighter so Kovalev is going to need to hope that some other legitimate opponents arrive on the light heavyweight scene between now and then or we might be witnessing another career that never lives up to its outstanding potential.

Update: On a positive note, Duva has a chance for redemption. It has been announced that Sergey Kovalev’s next fight will be in his native Russia, in November. Artur Beterbiev’s promoter Yvon
Michel, just came out with a statement saying that Beterbiev is willing to face Kovalev for this Russian date in a grudge match between former amateur rivals, a fight that would be huge in Russia featuring its two best light heavyweights and, perhaps, the two best in the world at 175 pounds.

Michel has said that they understand Beterbiev’s position as a challenger, and as such they are willing to not only fight on HBO and accept all that comes with being the “B” side of the promotion, but they are willing to give Kovalev a rematch clause in the event he loses his titles to Beterbiev. Michel’s only demand is a reasonable offer that doesn’t include future options on Beterbiev that would lock him into fights on HBO, should he emerge victorious. Let’s hope Duva and HBO do the right thing and make this Russian super fight for November as no one cares to see a pointless Pascal rematch, or another Nadjib Mohammedi caliber opponent for that matter.

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