By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) wants WBO 175 pound champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KOs) to remember to bring his World Boxing Organization title with him on the night they fight on November 8th in less than two weeks at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City.
Hopkins, 49, wants to be able to leave the ring with Kovalev’s WBO title belt either around his waist or slung over his shoulder so that the boxing fans can see it.
“@Krusher Kovalev, make sure u bring my WBO belt and case with you,” Hopkins said on his twitter. “Is that John David Jackson on ground round 6 of our fight? Krusher Kovalev, I hope he’s teaching you how to stay down.”.
Hopkins stopped Kovalev’s trainer John David Jackson in the 7th round in their fight in 1997. Hopkins is kind of rubbing it in as a reminder of what he did to Jackson when they fought. This is in response to Jackson saying that Hopkins is an old man who will fold under the pressure and pace from the younger 31-year-old Kovalev on 11/8.
The Hopkins-Kovalev fight is one that is nearly impossible to predict a winner in, because both guys have looked so good lately. Hopkins has swept his last three opponents in beating Beibut Shumenov, Karo Murat and Tavorius Cloud. Before that, Hopkins was beaten by Chad Dawson by a 12 round decision in 2012. Kovalev has shined recently in beating Blake Caparello, Cedric Agnew, Ismayl Sillah and Nathan Cleverly.
Hopkins is expected to try every trick in the book in order to get a win over Kovalev in this fight. Many boxing fans expect Hopkins to attempt to slow the action down by clinching, wrestling, and using movement to force the fight to be fought at a pace that his 49-year-old body can handle. That makes a lot of sense because Hopkins hasn’t fought a fast pace fight for at least five years, and he’s probably not going to want to risk getting into a fight where he has to expend a lot of energy.
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