By Dan Ambrose: While IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs) still has his mind focused on his fight this Saturday night against challenger Nadjib Mohammedi (37-3, 23 KOs) on HBO Championship Boxing from the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, it’s hard for him not to be thinking about a big money match-up against unbeaten WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) that could be taking place next year in 2016.

Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva is in discussions with Ward’s management at Roc Nation Sports about a fight between them possibly in late 2016 depending on their schedules.

“We have been talking to Andre Ward’s people all week,” Duva said via ESPN.com. “And I think we all agree the fight is going to happen.”

Ward recently moved up to light heavyweight to fight a catch-weight fight at 172lbs against super middleweight Paul Smith. Ward won the fight by a 9th round knockout against a guy who was basically not throwing many punches. However, Smith did hurt Ward with a hard right hand in the 7th round when he caught him flush with the shot.

Considering that Kovalev will be looking to land shots with even more power than this against Ward, it’s going to be tough for Ward to beat him. Ward is capable of fighting on the outside or the inside. However, he’s not going to be able to beat Kovalev by staying on the outside all night long throwing pot shots. Ward also won’t be able to wrestle and maul Kovalev in close like he did with Carl Froch, Edwin Rodriguez and Allan Green in the past. Kovalev is too strong a fighter and too good on the inside for Ward to get away with his smothering tactics in close.

Kovalev, 32, just needs to make sure that he doesn’t mess things up against the hard hitting Mohammedi this Saturday because this could be a lot tougher fight than expected. Kovalev was hurt a couple of times in his last fight against Jean Pascal before he scored a stoppage in the eighth round. Pascal found it easy to connect with his power shots to the head of Kovalev. The only problem Pascal had was dealing with the return fire from Kovalev.

Pascal was especially troubled by Kovalev’s jab in this fight, and that proved to be his undoing because it setup Kovalev’s big right hand and left hook. Mohammedi has the ability to get low and throw power shots with either hand. Unlike Pascal, Mohammedi isn’t afraid to let his hands go at all times. We won’t have the lulls in action where it’s all Kovalev. Mohammedi will be firing off his shots and looking to land each time Kovalev throws something. It should be interesting to see how Kovalev handles another big puncher.

“You’re talking about a fight between two guys who are both in the top five pound-for-pound in the world,” Duva said. The best fighting the best is what people want to see. So we’re really hoping to be able to complete that deal within the foreseeable future.”