By Allan Fox: With WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson now history after having moved over to Showtime, Kathy Duva, the promoter for WBO 175lb champion Sergey Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KO’s), is interested in matching the power punching Russian against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (27-0, 14 KO’s), but the fight would have to take place at the full 175lb for the light heavyweight division without a catch-weight for Ward.
“Certainly, Andre Ward is a fight we want. He’s going to have to come up at 175 because he [Kovalev] can’t make 168,” Duva said to thaboxingvoice.
What are the chances of Ward moving up to face Kovalev? I’d say not too good. If Ward wasn’t interested in facing an arguably lesser puncher in Chad Dawson at a catch-weight or at his full weight of 175, then it’s highly unlikely that Ward is going to want to step up to 175 and face Kovalev, even though it’s the biggest fight that Ward could make right now that he has a realistic chance of getting, but it’s improbable that he would ever agree to such a dangerous fight. Ward is a great defensive fighter, but he still gets hit a lot.
With Kovalev’s big power, he could make a mess of Ward like he did against his last opponent Cedric Agnew. 6-7 rounds appears to be the upper limit for what one of Kovalev’s opponents can physically stand before they’re unable to continue fighting. Ward would have a lot of problems against someone like that, because his usual mugging style of fighting wouldn’t work well enough for him to get hit with some monstrous punches.
Kovalev is able to punch with enormous power even in close, and that would be a problem for Ward because he wouldn’t be able to count on smothering him the way he normally with his opponents.
Kovalev is without a top name for him to fight now that Stevenson has signed up with Showtime. Duva is interested in matching Kovalev against the top super middleweights besides Ward, such as Carl Froch, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, and George Groves. She’s also interested in matching Kovalev against light heavyweights Jean Pascal and Lucian Bute as well. Those would be decent fights if she could get either of them to agree to it, but it’s doubtful. Pascal is a fighter who is very selective in who he faces nowadays, and Bute looks to be totally shots with nothing left.
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