Light heavyweight star attraction Sergey Kovalev returns Saturday night on HBO in tough. He won’t have an easy time defending his WBO title against talented Montreal based Colombian contender Eleider Alvarez. Rising star Dmitry Bivol defends his WBA equivalent in the co-featured contest.
Sergey “The Krusher” Kovalev (31-2-1, 27 KOs) is a well known commodity at this point. The 34 year old Russian has been knocking his opponents out one at a time on HBO since 2013. That night he met and Krushed fellow unbeaten prospect Nathan Cleverly, turning what was supposed to be a competitive matchup into a rout in a hurry. Sergey went on to win eight more on the network in a row, collecting three of the four belts along the way.
His most prominent wins during that run were dominant showings in a stoppage over Jean Pascal and then a wide decision over Bernard Hopkins. Pascal was riding high off from his one sided win in an all Montreal showdown with Lucian Bute going into that fight while B-Hop was still on his schitck of being an ageless wonder, an alien. Granted, Pascal had been exposed before and Hopkins was rapidly closing in on fifty, but the division wasn’t really offering anything else. The fight Kovalev and everyone else wanted was a matchup with WBC titleholder Adonis Stevenson, but the Stevenson camp has never really been interested in challenging fights since winning the belt.
Andre Ward made everyone forget about that, however. When the long time pound for pound elite announced he was moving to light heavyweight and eventually fighting Sergey Kovalev, there was some real buzz amongst boxing purists. This was a fight we all had to see. Unfortunately the card was promoted terribly and never registered with the more casual side of the audience, but the fight itself delivered at least. Kovalev hurt and dropped Ward early, controlling the first half of the fight. Andre Ward and his amazing ring IQ adjusted to largely control the second half. In the end the Oakland fighter got the decision. I had no problem with it, but many still scream robbery to this day.
The second fight between the men gave a better sense of closure, but still not a pure one. The two of them fought on even terms for seven rounds before Ward landed the best single shot of his career, a monstrous right hand that clearly hurt Sergey Kovalev. Ward swarmed with a body-centric attack looking for the finish. He got it when he hunched Kovalev over defenseless, but the same contingent loudly proclaiming a robbery will tell you that those shots were low and illegal. I thought they were borderline.
What wasn’t borderline was the luster knocked off Sergey Kovalev’s shine following the two losses. I think that is unfortunate. In my view, Andre Ward is absolutely one of the best fighters of the last twenty years. His resume at super middleweight was unreal and the Kovalev fights at light heavyweight are the cherry on top. So yes, Kovalev lost to him twice and I think both results are fair, but beyond that he fought basically even with Andre Ward for twenty rounds. Because the division was weak and Stevenson uninterested, the Russian destroyer sunk subpar competition during his rise to fame. He didn’t duck anyone, but there was no one to fight at a real high level until Ward. I find more legitimacy in the extremely competitive Ward losses for Sergey Kovalev than I do in wins over the likes of Nadjib Mohammedi or Blake Caparello.
In November, The Krusher krushed defensively liable Ukrainian fringe contender Vyacheslav Shabranskyy to win back a Ward vacated belt and announce his return to the sport. He did struggle a bit with another midlevel guy in Igor Milkhalkin back in March. Not struggle in the sense that it was a competitive fight because it wasn’t, but The Krusher didn’t Krush. He had a degree of difficulty finishing his fellow Russian and Igor got notable shots in of his own. At 35, it is fair to wonder whether or not the Mikhalkin fight was the first age related crack in the armor.
If those cracks are there, Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) is plenty good enough to do something with them. The Montreal based Colombian is a true top contender at the weight. Alvarez had some TV exposure before this fight, but he first really stepped up in class late in 2015 against Isaac Chilemba. The South African is always an extremely tough out and Eleider definitely struggled some with him in a somewhat dull fight, but he earned the decision fairly in the end. This made Alvarez the mandatory challenger for WBC titleholder Adonis Stevenson, but that fight never came to fruition no matter how many times the WBC ordered it. Stevenson and his team weren’t interested in difficult fights to say the least. They just kept paying him good money to go away.
After a couple stay busy fights down a level back when the Montreal transplant thought he might actually fight Stevenson, Alvarez stepped back up to meet and absolutely thrash an aging Lucian Bute. He put a beating on the local star. It was by far the most aggressive performance of Eleider’s career and probably his best all around. He followed it by again meeting an aging foe in another all Montreal showdown, this time largely beating up Jean Pascal over twelve rounds. Alvarez and his team were clearly trying to make him him into a local star by having him beat the last generation’s local stars.
Whether that worked remains to be seen, but the wins over the bigger names got Eleider Alvarez this shot against divisional king Sergey Kovalev on HBO. He can win this fight too. I’m not saying he will, but he is far better than most of Kovalev’s previous opponents. The larger media narrative is that Alvarez is Kovalev’s best opponent since Ward, but I think a more accurate wording might be that he is Kovalev’s best opponent OTHER than Andre Ward. I think this fact is being undersold a little bit. Who did Kovalev fight that was better than Eleider Alvarez? Nathan Cleverly? Definitely not. A younger Jean Pascal? Maybe, but Pascal never had the Colombian’s technical skills. An almost 50 Bernard Hopkins? I seriously doubt it at that point in his career. I see this as a real toss up fight. Eleider Alvarez always would have been a tough opponent for Sergey Kovalev. With The Krusher now aging and on the downside of his career, that is only more true now than ever before.
The plan is to match the main event’s winner with that of the co-main event between WBA titleholder Dmitry Bivol (13-0, 11 KOs) and longtime contender Isaac Chilemba (25-5-2, 10 KOs). Basically everyone expects and hopes for that to be Dmitry Bivol. Chilemba has been a quality, underrated competitor for some time, but his fights can be dull and there is a real excitement for Bivol in the sport. No one has stopped Chilemba outside of it being due to an injury, so that could be a real feather in the young Russian’s cap if he pulls it off. That is much easier said then done against someone as skilled as Isaac Chilemba though. I expect Dmitry to take a wide decision.
