Hopkins says he called Kovalev out before the Cleverly fight

By Boxing News - 08/22/2013 - Comments

UEFA Women's Under 17's Draw(Photo credit: Main Events) By Allan Fox: IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KO’s) is saying that he called out unbeaten knockout artist Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) before Kovalev’s fight against WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, but Kovalev instead chose to fight Cleverly instead of him.

That’s Hopkins’ side of the story, according to Thaboxingvoice.com. Hopkins thinks Kovalev didn’t want to fight him.

Kovalev couldn’t Hopkins even if he wanted to because Hopkins already had a mandatory that he couldn’t get around in Karo Murat (25-1-1, 15 KO’s), so it’s difficult to know what Hopkins is talking about by saying he wanted to take the fight with Kovalev. Hopkins had to fight Murat or risk losing his IBF title.

Another thing getting in the way of the Hopkins-Kovalev fight is that Hopkins fights on Showtime, whereas Kovalev fights on HBO. That’s not going to change anytime soon. HBO isn’t going to lend Kovalev to Showtime, and I doubt that Hopkins, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, is going to fight on HBO.

Even Cleverly said that Hopkins didn’t want to be the one that had to fight Kovalev. Cleverly felt that Hopkins wanted him to be the one to fight Kovalev in a way to prove himself, and that’s why Cleverly took the fight.

It doesn’t matter what Hopkins is saying about him having wanted to fight Kovalev before the Cleverly bout. The fact is Hopkins didn’t fight him, and Kovalev is the one that is all of a sudden getting all the positive press for his knockouts. HBO has a huge amount of subscribers to their network, and Kovalev is getting a massive amount of attention from his knockouts.

Hopkins hasn’t knocked anyone out in 9 years since stopping Oscar De La Hoya with a body shot in 2004. It’s nice that Hopkins is still able to win decisions, but Kovalev’s knockouts are getting way more attention in the boxing world.



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