By Allan Fox: HBO Championship Boxing has decided to television the July 11th fight between IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (29-0-1, 26 KOs) and fellow Main Events fighter #12 WBA Isaac Chilemba (24-3-, 10 KOs) from the DIVS Palace of Sports in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
It’s not an ideal date because the fight is taking place on a Monday rather than on Saturday, July 9. By the fight taking place on the 11th of July, it won’t have to compete with the big rematch between IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury an Wladimir Klitschko on July 9. There won’t be any competition for the fight.
It’s not a great fight though. Chilemba, 29, is coming off a 12 round decision loss to Eleider Alvarez last November, and that takes a lot of the excitement out of the Kovalev-Chilemba contest. Kovalev gets the beaten Chilemba rather than the fighter that beat him in Eleider Alvarez.
Chilemba has zero punching power, and is known for his crafty defensive skills. He’s the perfect opponent for Kovalev to get ready for Ward’s defensive style of fighting. When Ward was in the zenith of his career back in 2011, he was able to punch a little and had decent offensive skills. But with years of inactivity, Ward’s offensive skills have withered away to the point where he’s only capable of throwing single pot shots before ducking out of the way of return fire.
Ward makes his comeback last March in beating Sullivan Barrera at light heavyweight. Ward did not look good in that fight compared to how he was previously in the prime of his career. Boxing fans who don’t remember Ward at his best, were impressed with how he looked against Barrera because they had nothing to compare his performance to. They were seeing him for the first time and they thought he looked pretty good.
HBO needs to televise Kovalev’s next fight because they’re trying to attract interest in a fight between him and former super middleweight champion Andre Ward for this November on HBO PPV. HBO will also be televising Ward’s next tine-up fight as well. Ward doesn’t have an opponent picked out yet, but there had been talk of him fighting Andrzej Fonfara. It’s questionable whether that fight will take place though.
Ward, 31, has moved up to the light heavyweight division and is hoping to become a star in the division like he was at 168. At the very least, Ward wants to fight the top guys in the division to prove that he’s the best fighter in that weight class. Ward could find himself in the same position as Kovalev in not being able to get a fight against Stevenson. However, there are plenty of high quality fighters for Ward to fight even if he never gets the fight with Stevenson.
Kovalev possesses three of the four world titles at 175. He wants to grab the last remaining belt [WBC] not in his possession, but that could prove to be difficult. The belt is held by Adonis Stevenson, who is with manager Al Haymon. Stevenson’s fights aren’t televised by HBO, so the only way the two of them can fight each other is for them to fight on their rival network.