By Allan Fox: WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KO’s) was hoping to fight in May in Russia, but that’s not going to happen now after he was cut over both eyes in his harder than expected 7th round KO win over Cedric Agnew (26-1, 13 KO’s) last Saturday night in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The fight was supposed to be a cakewalk for the powerful Kovalev, but someone should have told that to Agnew because he didn’t go down without a tough fight. Agnew cut Kovalev over the right eye with an accidental head clash in the 4th. In the 6th, Agnew surprised Kovalev with a hard right hook that cut him on the side of his left eye.
Kovalev could have avoided the second cut had he kept his guard up while he was attacking Agnew in an all-out manner. Kovalev was too intent on trying to get the stoppage, and he forgot all about keeping his left hand high to block Agnew’s right hook. It didn’t really matter though. The cut that Kovalev suffered over right eye is bad enough for him to miss his May fight in Russia.
“We were planning to take him to Russia in May, but with those cuts he can’t fight in two months,” Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva said via ESPN.
That fight wasn’t going to be televised on HBO anyway, so it’s not a big deal for boxing fans. Kovalev needs to heal up, and hopefully in his next title defense in 6 months or so, Duva might be able to get a good opponent for him to fight. With Adonis Stevenson gone from the HBO network, Duva should consider pooling from the super middleweight division to find an opponent for Kovalev to fight.
Guys like Andre Ward, Sakio Bika, James DeGale, Arthur Abraham, Robert Stieglitz, Carl Froch or Mikkel Kessler would be perfect for him to fight. However, finding the money to pay them might be difficult given that Kovalev hasn’t reached the star status yet for his fights to generate big money. It’s doubtful that any of those fighters would ever agree to move up in weight to fight someone who hasn’t yet become a household name.
If Kovalev is unable to find big names for him to fight, it’s going to be difficult for him to bring in big ratings on HBO. They could be in a situation where it might not be beneficial to have him on their network if he’s going to be fighting opposition that fans have never heard of. Trying to get casual boxing fans interested in seeing Kovalev fight obscure opposition may prove to be impossible.
Would HBO cut Kovalev loose for lack of opponents? It’s possible. He doesn’t bring in a ready-made fan base like some fighters do, and that means he won’t be able to bring in big ratings unless he faces recognizable opposition. There’s no word yet about what the ratings were for last night’s Kovalev-Agnew fight card, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they were less than impressive.
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