By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs) will be defending his titles two months from now against his hard hitting IBF mandatory challenger mandatory Nadjib Mohammedi (37-3, 23 KOs) on July 18th on HBO Championship Boxing at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This a fight that Kovalev has been putting off because it’s not one that boxing fans are too particularly interested in seeing. In Kovalev’s last two fights, he’s beaten Jean Pascal and Bernard Hopkins.
The Pascal fight was competitive until Kovalev dropped the boom on him in scoring a stoppage. After that win, Kovalev was hoping to fight WBC 175 pound champion Adonis Stevenson, but with him fighting on Showtime and Kovalev on HBO, it’s not a doable fight right now. For it to take place, Stevenson would have to be able to fight on HBO against Kovalev, and that doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime too soon.
“My Time has come to show the world who I am. I let Kovalev beat some guys but now I will show he ain’t no Krusher,” Mohammedi told Fightnews.com. “I am smarter, faster, and I’m the next generation of light heavyweight. I will become champion July 18th.”
Mohammedi has stopped his last four opponents in beating Lee Campbell, Demetrius Walker, Anatoliy Dudchenko, and Oleksandr Cherviak. However, all of those guys were well out of Mohammedi’s class so it’s not so surprising that he was able to stop him.
In 2010, Mohammedi lost a narrow 12 round unanimous decision to Nathan Cleverly in a fight that was close from start to finish. In 2011, Mohammedi was stopped in the 2nd round by Dmitry Sukhotsky.
Kovalev is likely going to do really well against Mohammedi because this guy is slow, easy to hit, and he tends to stand directly in front of his opponents. One of the reasons why Mohammedi fights like that is because he’s normally the harder puncher than his opponents, but not in this case. Kovalev is clearly the bigger puncher and he could score a knockout I this fight unless Mohammedi fights smart and stays out of the way of trading with him.
Kovalev has so much size and such a great jab that it makes him very hard to beat. You can’t expect Mohammedi to be able to hang with a talented fighter like Kovalev for long. If Mohammedi does last the full 12 rounds, it’ll be a major accomplishment for him.
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