(Photo credit: HBO/Will Hart) By Dan Ambrose: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs) made weight on Friday afternoon in coming in at 174.5 pounds for his title defense against No.1 IBF Nadjib Mohammedi (37-3, 23 KOs) on Saturday night on HBO from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mohammedi weighed in at 173.
Kovalev looked like he was about to start laughing during the stare down when the two fighters faced each other. Mohammedi was looking menacing at Kovalev, and it didn’t seem to bother the Russian fighter at all. He seemed to take it as a big bluff on Mohammedi’s part. Kovalev is a huge 100-1 favorite to win in some betting circles.
Kovalev will have a big advantage in punching power when he enters the ring tomorrow night in Las Vegas. Mohammedi is more of a boxer than a puncher, even though he does have a lot of knockouts on his resume.
The knockouts have come against largely woeful opposition. In the small handful of fights where Mohammedi has faced good opposition, he’s not been able to score knockouts. In fact, he’s been the one who has been knocked out. It’s unclear why the International Boxing Federation gave Mohammedi a No.1 ranking with their organization because he’s not faced anybody good.
In the co-feature weights, former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (29-3-1, 17 KOs) weighed in at 178lbs for his scheduled 10 round fight against unbeaten Yunieski Gonzalez (16-0, 12 KOs). For his part, Gonzalez weighed in at 178.
During the face off, Gonzalez and Pascal looked like they were about to start exchanging punches. Gonzalez looked angry like he wanted to tear Pascal’s head off on the spot. Pascal, who is usually pretty low key during the weigh-ins, starred back angrily at Gonzalez, showing no fear at all. Pascal is the clear favorite in this fight, so he has nothing to fear.
Pascal will have a big advantage in hand speed, experience and power when he gets inside the ring tomorrow night. Gonzalez is unbeaten, but he’s not been matched against anyone good as of yet. This will be his first opponent with talent that he’s faced in his career. The only thing that Gonzalez has going for him in this fight is that Pascal was stopped in his last fight against Kovalev. So there’s a possibility that Gonzalez might be catching Pascal at the right moment where he’s not the fighter that he normally would be.
Other weights:
Sulivan Barrera : 174,5 lbs
Hakim Zoulikha : 175 lbs
10 rounds.
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