By Scott Gilfoid: Yesterday the IBF ordered a fight between IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins and his mandatory challenger unbeaten #4 IBF Sergey Kovalev. They have until July 17th to negotiate a fight, according to Dan Rafael.
If the negotiations aren’t completed by that point in time, then the fight will go to purse bids. It’s unclear whether Hopkins will choose to take this fight.
If he decides to vacate or go the unification route with another champion to avoid the hard hitting Kovalev then we could see Kovalev face WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly on August 17th on the Darren Barker vs. Daniel Geale fight card.
A Cleverly-Kovalev fight might even be a more interesting fight than a Kolvalev-Hopkins bout because Cleverly would look to slug with Kovalev and outwork him over 12 rounds; whereas Hopkins would likely look to smother Kovalev’s power on the inside by forcing him to fight on the inside where Kovalev is much less of a threat to him.
Kovalev looked good last Friday night in his 3rd round TKO win over Cornelius Bundrage. In that fight, Kovalev knocked White down three times in the 3rd round with big shots to the head to get the victory by stoppage.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says he’s not sure about Kovalev as an opponent for Hopkins because he’s not seen him before and he doesn’t know if there will be any interest in that fight. However, it’s virtually the same situation Hopkins was going to be in against his previously scheduled fight against his mandatory challenger Karo Murat.
That fight was cancelled due to Murat having visa problems that will prevent him to fly over to the United States in July to face Hopkins. Murat is a totally unknown fighter with casual boxing fans in the U.S, as he’s a German based fighter and only hardcore boxing fans know who he is.
The odd thing is Schaefer wasn’t complaining about Murat when he was going to be Hopkins’ opponent, but he sure is now that the hard hitting Kovalev is the mandatory. The difference between Kovalev and Murat is in the power department. Kovalev is the much bigger puncher of the two and he has a genuine chance to beat Hopkins.
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