By Allan Fox: Andre Ward was a no show for Tuesday’s press conference with IBF/WBA/WBA light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev for the two fighters to discuss their upcoming fight on November 19 on HBO pay-per-view. It’s hard to tell why the 32-year-old Ward chose not to attend the press conference. Kovalev isn’t sure if it was gamesmanship or a case of Ward simply not wanting to take part.
Kovalev says should have been there, and he’s hoping that he shows up for the future press conferences for the fight. This is not a good start for the Kovalev vs. Ward fight. If Ward isn’t going to attend his own press conferences, it’s going to be difficult to drum up support for the fight. You’ve got to feel sorry for Kovalev, because this is the biggest fight of his career and it’s off to a bad star.
One can only hope that Ward doesn’t plan on being a no show for the future press conferences because that would almost surely doom his November 19 fight against Kovalev for low pay-per-view numbers on HBO. The idea behind press conferences is to get the boxing public excited about a fight enough to want to either pay to watch it or see it on regular cable. With the Kovalev vs. Ward being televised on HBO pay-per-view, it’s very important that both fighers be in attendance for the press conferences. It would also help if there were some friction between the two contestants. Right now, Ward and Kovalev are still being very nice to each other and they need to come up with some conflict somehow.
“Yes, he should be here,” said Kovalev about Ward to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times. “This event happened without him, and I hope for the next press conference, he will come and we will do what we should do. It could be [gamesmanship on Ward’s part], but I have just one goal to get into the ring on November 19 and do my job. I’m not worrying yet [about Ward]. I think the fight is going to be mental; who is smarter, and who will bring the best plan into the ring will win. Andre Ward looked very great, very spectacular, but don’t forget Alexander Brand is not a boxer of high level. Everybody has a plan inside the ring before the first hard punch. It’s my goal yeah [to land hard punches]. I must prove thi. We’ll see. Andre didn’t have a goal to knock him out. His plan was to fight for 12 rounds to get more experience for November 19. He had the right plan, he did it and he looked very nice. He’s got great reactions, he’s got good defense, and he lands in the right place, his punches. He was doing a lot of things great. He’s a real professional,” said Kovalev.
Kathy Duva, the promoter for Kovalev, says the negotiations with Ward’s promoters at Roc Nation Sports are difficult right now for their November 19 fight. Duva and Roc Nation are trying to decide where the fight will take place. It was thought originally that it would take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, it’s unclear where the fight will be staged right now.
It sounds like the negotiations are going to be difficult between Duva at Main Events and Roc Nation. Hopefully, the fight still winds up taking place. It would be a bad deal if the two fighters couldn’t get the fight negotiated after the time spent fighting tune-ups to get ready for this fight.
“I guess living hell is a pretty good description of the negotiations,” Duva said to Fightnews.com. “There’s a lot of nice people at Roc Nation but unfortunately, the leadership of their company is just not capable of dealing with this fight…I can only come to the conclusion that perhaps on their side is some problem with Andre Ward. We expect the fight will be taking place SOMEWHERE…we have a deal with the T-Mobile (in Las Vegas) as far as I’m concerned.”
It doesn’t really matter where the Ward vs. Kovalev fight takes place. It’s all the same to the boxing fans that will be seeing it on HBO PPV. Kovalev will be looking to take the judges out of the equation on November 19, so there’s a good chance that the fight won’t be going to the scorecards in this one. If Kovalev treats Ward like he did Bernard Hopkins, then the judges will be able to score this fight with their eyes closed. They won’t be able to mess up on this one at all because it will be too easy to score.