By Dan Ambrose: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs) is a huge 100-1 favorite to defeat #1 IBF contender Nadjib Mohammedi (37-3, 23 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight on HBO from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ticket sales reportedly are slow, and things aren’t helped by the fact that another fight is taking place in Las Vegas on the same night between cruiserweights Beibut Shumenov and BJ Flores at the Palms Casino & Resort in Las Vegas.
It’s obviously not a great fight too, but it’s definitely competition for the Kovalev- Mohammedi fight in terms of paying customers.
You can’t blame Kovalev for the mismatch. It’s the International Boxing Federation who decided to give Mohammedi a No.1 ranking with their organization despite the fact that he’d been stopped by Dmitry Sukhotsky in the 2nd round four years ago in their fight in 2011.
Sukhotsky is the same fighter that WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson destroyed by a 5th round knockout last December in 2014. It doesn’t look good for Mohammedi that he was beaten so easily by Sukhotsky. Styles make fights, but you can assume that if Mohammedi wasn’t able to compete with Sukhotsky, then he’ll be in even worse problems on Saturday night against Kovalev, who would likely wipe the deck with Sukhotsky if given the chance.
Mohammedi has won his last 13 fights since his loss to Sukhotsky, but his opposition has been poor to say the least. Mohammedi’s best opponent in the last four years was Anatoliy Dudchenko, and he looked really poor like he’d never fought before.
Dudchenko didn’t seem to have any skills at all, and it was like it first time he ever put on a pair of boxing gloves.
The good news is that once Mohammedi out of the way put back in the bottom of the pack, Kovalev will be looking at a tough challenge the next time he defends his titles against his next IBF contender because it’ll be Artur Beterbiev, and he’s actually quite good. Kovalev’s No.1 WBO contender is Dominic Boesel, and that’ll be another mismatch.
The quality in the light heavyweight division is pretty poor overall. There’s a small handful of good fighters, but most of the rest are very poor. You can toss out virtually 98% of the fighters in the top 15, because there’s so few of them who have even shred of talent.
Kovalev wants to fight the likes of Adonis Stevenson and Andre Ward, but he’s got no chance at getting a fight against Stevenson. As for Ward, Kovalev might be able to get that fight in 2016, but it’s still up in the air whether that fight will take place.
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