By Ian Aldous: On Saturday June 17th, live on HBO PPV from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Andre Ward (31-0), will rematch Sergey Kovalev (30-1), and defend his IBF/WBA and WBO world light-heavyweight titles. The event entitled ‘No Excuses’ will hopefully put to bed any doubts that linger from the first fight in which Ward was victorious via a narrow and disputed unanimous decision. During this week’s three city U.S press tour, I spoke with the fight’s co-promoter, Kathy Duva, to discuss the first fight, the rematch, and the other champion at 175lbs.
IA: First of all, going back to the original fight in November, what were your overall thoughts and how did you score it?
KD: Well, I wasn’t keeping score during the fight. But, my impression was that we were up (laughs). I certainly saw Sergey winning the first six rounds. I certainly saw him knocking his opponent down and getting a two-point round, so at that point I don’t know how you lose the fight after six rounds. I also saw him win the tenth round clearly. I think the other rounds were close but what really strikes me about the judging of that fight is that apparently the judges did not give a single close round to the champion, and did not give him a few rounds that he won. It was very disheartening. I don’t think this was a close fight at all.
IA: Sometimes you get those fights where one person sees it one way and the other person sees it the other way and you can kind of understand why it doesn’t go your way, but you obviously don’t think this is the way the first contest went?
KD: I don’t think so and I think 85% of the people agree with me. The champion doesn’t get a single close round – that doesn’t make sense. It’s troubling to me and I rarely criticise judges because I really do understand how hard their job is and they get affected by a lot of things, crowd noises, momentum shifts in the fight and all that stuff – I get it. But it looked to me as though if Sergey had beat the crap out of Ward in any given round – Ward got the round (laughs). That’s not how it’s supposed to be (laughs).
IA: I remember you saying to me a while ago that the first fight was pretty easy to make, was it a similar case in making the rematch?
KD: When we made the original deal, the rematch was part of it, in the event that Sergey didn’t win. It wasn’t hard (to make the rematch), we had to wait three months for them to talk to us and it took about a week and a half to get it done, then we waited about three-four weeks for them to sign it. People have this impression that there’s huge negotiations going back and forth, there was practically no negotiation at all, the deal was in place. They asked for some things that didn’t matter to me like creative control is mostly what that was, and I wasn’t about to make problems over that. We could have gone to court and sued, but you can’t win your belts back in a courtroom. Sergey wants his belts back, we took our ego out of it and told them ‘have at it’.
IA: Not so long ago, Sergey was in the form of his life knocking everyone out. Do you think Sergey’s not been at his 100% imperious best in his last two bouts, against Isaac Chilemba and Ward?
KD: Yeah, he’ll tell you that now and he’s explaining that to everyone. In those two fights he decided to change the way he was training and he went way overboard with it. Three sessions a day of training, he basically left a lot in the gym for both fights.
IA: We knew Sergey wanted this rematch to right what he believes was a wrong result from the first fight. Do you think Andre Ward wants it just as bad to prove any doubters wrong?
KD: Oh, I think Andre has as much to prove as Sergey does because while he may have walked off with those belts, he did not get any respect and that is what he clearly craves if you listen to him. When the fight was over, Sergey had people’s respect, he may not have had his belts but he did have the respect of the fans. You see evidence of that every single day, we’re sitting in a restaurant right now and a guy from England walked up to him and told him he’s his biggest fan and took some selfies (laughs). Ward doesn’t get that kind of reaction from people, that’s what he craves, and Sergey just wants his belts back (laughs).
IA: If you were promoting Adonis Stevenson, wouldn’t you want him involved in the Kovalev/Ward mix?
KD: If I was promoting him, he would have fought Sergey a long time ago. You should ask his promoter why he’s not in the mix (laughs). There’s a direct reason for that with his manager, the manager of the year. Well, he used to be manager of the year all the time but now Sergey’s manager is manager of the year – finally some justice (laughs). The decision was made years ago when we had that fight made (Kovalev/Stevenson) to pull Adonis out of it and everything he’s done since then would indicate he has no interest ever getting in the ring with anyone that might be able to beat him. That’s too bad, because he’s watched how Sergey’s image has grown and grown. When we started five years ago, Sergey was unknown everywhere – in Russia unknown! Adonis at that point had just scored a big upset over Chad Dawson and everybody saw him as being this great fighter – Sergey was chasing him! Now look at where Sergey is and where Stevenson is and Stevenson did it to himself. He would have been better off getting in the ring with Sergey and losing because then he would have respect. It’s funny, I’ve been doing this my whole life and I’ve known fighters at the beginning of their careers literally until they’re having grandchildren and beyond. What I’ve learned in all this time is that this career is short and fleeting, when it’s over all you have left is reputation and your legacy and your name. If you have those things, you have the building blocks of a nice life after boxing. You get to walk around and have people walk up to you and pat you on the back. What Adonis Stevenson is going to have is he’s going to be the object of ridicule and that’s too bad. Frankly, if he’d just done what he should have and stepped up and been a competitor, people would admire that.
IA: What have you made of the interactions at this week’s first two press conferences between Sergey and Andre?
KD: It’s clear that they have some animosity now that they didn’t have last time. It certainly makes my job easier because last time we couldn’t get a rise out of either one of them as they were just so darned respectful. This time it’s become clear they express themselves in different ways, Sergey being much more willing to say what he thinks. Andre is very buttoned-up and a kind of repressed guy, so he doesn’t say what he thinks. They don’t like each other (laughs) and Sergey does his best work when he doesn’t like his opponent, so I’m pretty happy about it (laughs).
Ward vs. Kovalev II “No Excuses,” a 12-round mega-fight for the WBO/IBF/WBA light heavyweight championships, is presented by Roc Nation Sports, Main Events, Andre Ward Promotions, Krusher Promotions and Corona Extra, and is sponsored by Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The championship event takes place Saturday, June 17 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
Tickets for Ward-Kovalev 2: “The Rematch” went on sale to the public on Friday, April 14 at 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT. Tickets priced at $1,255, $755, $505, $355, $255 and $105 not including applicable service charges will be available on axs.com and at the Mandalay Bay Events Center box office.
Follow the conversation using #WardKovalev.