By Jeff Aranow: Sergey ‘Krusher’ Kovalev has decided to exercise his contractual rematch clause to force a second fight against Eleider ‘Storm’ Alvarez after he lost his WBO light heavyweight title against him earlier this month on August 4 in getting halted in the 7th round at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Kovalev’s manager Egis Klimis told Dan Rafael of ESPN that Sergey would be taking the rematch with Alvarez.
It was always expected that the 35-year-old Kovalev would exercise his rematch clause in his contract, because it’s not the type of fight that he could walk away from and still have a career. The Russian Kovalev absolutely needs to avenge his loss to the unbeaten Alvarez for him to be able to get the bigger fights in the 175 pound division against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson, WBA champ Dmitry Bivol and IBF champion Artur Beterbiev.
Kovalev (32-3-1, 28 KOs) dominated the first six rounds, but then got careless in the 7th and was dropped three times by the 34-year-old Alvarez (24-0, 12 KOs). The referee David Fields stepped in and stopped the fight after the third knockdown in the round. At the time the contest was waived off by Fields, Kovalev was ahead by the scores 59-55, 59-55 and 58-56. Alvarez caught the tired-looking Kovalev with a powerful right hand in the 7th that hurt him badly. After getting hurt, Kovalev was quickly dropped three times before the fight was stopped. Kovalev failed to fight defensively after getting caught by the first big right hand. It’s unclear what the outcome would have been like had Kovalev fought smart and held Alvarez to try and get out of the round. Kovalev tried to punch with Alvarez after getting hurt rather than to recover. It was a mistake that cost Kovalev the fight.
“Yes, he wants to have the rematch. There’s no other fight that he wants and there is no fight as big for him as the rematch,” Klimas said to ESPN.com.
Kovalev and Alvarez must face each other by February. That gives Kovalev plenty of time to recover from his knockout, and to get in shape to try and avenge the loss. The loss for Kovalev was his third in his last five fights. Kovalev was twice between by Andre Ward. Those fights showed a flaw in Kovalev’s game in terms of his stamina. Ward was able to tire Kovalev out in both fights by grappling with him, and hitting him with hard body shots. Alvarez went about beating Kovalev in a different way than Ward did. Instead of throwing punches to Kovalev’s body and tying him up to wrestle him, Alvarez boxed him until the 7th before opening up with his heavy artillery.
If Kovalev loses a second time to Alvarez, then he needs to think about hanging up his gloves for good. Kovalev is 35-years-old, and he’s not young for that age like Gennady Golovkin. Kovalev is starting to show signs of age.