By Jesse James: Last Saturday Sergey Kovalev beat the great and legendary Bernard Hopkins. It was a complete shutout with Kovalev winning every round while also dropping Hopkins in the first round and hurting him a few other times. Credit to Hopkins for taking the fight and fighting the best in his division and showing good defense as well. In the process Kovalev added three of the four major world titles in his possession making him the unified WBA, IBF and WBO light heavyweight champion of the world. What’s missing is the lineal title which would make him #1 in the division and the prestigious WBC title.
Adonis Stevenson the lineal champion of 175 holds the WBC title and is on paper the #1 guy at 175. These two were slated to fight this fall 2014 but the fight fell through after Stevenson signed with Al Haymon and his fight with Fonfara was bought by Showtime for more money. Stevenson`s intention was to fight Hopkins on Showtime but that also fell through when Stevenson’s team weren’t going anywhere with negotiations, so Hopkins opted to fight Kovalev on HBO.
Stevenson recently stated that he is number 1 at 175 and wants to fight the winner of Hopkins vs Kovalev. If the fight is made after Stevenson wins his tune up fight, then the winner of Stevenson vs Kovalev will be the absolute undisputed 175 lb champion of the world with all four major titles and the lineal title as well. This is the fight fans need to demand and pressure the promoters to make. This fight would happen probably in the summer of 2015. Why? Because Stevenson’s team is looking to set up a fight with Jean Pascal in Montreal in April next year, while Kovalev is probably heading to fight his IBF mandatory challenger. Both guys have huge power, good boxing skills, and are the only 2 champions at 175 unless you want to count secondary WBA title holder Jurgan Brahmer. Other than that fans need to speak up so this fight is made sometime next year.
If Stevenson really has no intention fighting Kovalev then he needs to quit being a clown and relinquish his titles… and let a real champion have those titles.
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