By Mike Smith: WBO light heavyweight champion Eleider ‘Storm’ Alvarez (24-0, 12 KOs) will be facing Sergey ‘Krusher’ Kovalev (32-3-1, 28 KOs) in a rematch on February 2 on ESPN, possibly in Frisco, Texas.
Alvarez, 34, is reportedly has received offers from Top Rank/ESPN as well as Matchroom Boxing USA/DAZN to fight for those platforms, according to promoter Yvon Michel. Alvarez-Kovalev 2 will be shown on ESPN. Top Rank/ESPN would like to sign Alvarez to a long-term deal.
Alvarez was unhappy with the way Kovalev failed to give him credit after their fight last August. When Kovalev failed to do that, Alvarez wasn’t pleased. Alvarez says he’s using Kovalev’s behavior as motivation for the rematch.
“I found that it was a great lack of respect for me, that he did not give me the credit that came back to me,” said Alvarez to rds.ca. “It will only motivate me more.”
There’s no telling whether Alvarez will win his rematch with the 35-year-old Kovalev. The first fight was going Kovalev’s way up until the 7th round when Alvarez suddenly opened up with some big power shots. Before that, Kovalev was getting the better of Alvarez and looking like he was on his way to a victory. You can’t rule out a victory for Kovalev if he catches Alvarez early in the rematch.
Kovalev is hard to beat when he boxes at range, which makes him a threat to defeat Alvarez by a decision. Top Rank and Matchroom are assuming obviously that Alvarez will beat Kovalev in the rematch, because if he loses, they’re going to be stuck with a fighter that could be at stuck with no place to go. Alvarez is a good fighter, but he’s not seen as someone that can beat the likes of Adonis Stevenson, Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev. Those guys are considered a cut above Alvarez in the talent and power department.
Placing the Alvarez vs. Kovalev 2 rematch in Frisco, Texas is an odd choice for the fight. The Russian born Kovalev has been fighting mostly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, New York and Las Vegas, Nevada. Alvarez fights out of Canada. The two of them will be lucky if they can bring in any kind of crowd fighting in Texas unless the undercard if loaded with local talent.
Kovalev wants to avenge his 7th round knockout loss to Alvarez from last August in Atlantic City. Kovalev was doing fine in the fight when he was boxing, but he ran into trouble when he started slugging in the 7th. Alvarez took advantage of Kovalev’s aggressiveness by hitting him with a hard combination that hurt him. Alvarez then dropped Kovalev three times in the round to get a 7th round stoppage. The loss for Kovalev was a huge blow to his career, considering that it was his third defeat in his last five fights. Kovalev’s other two losses came against Andre ‘SOG’ in controversial fights. Kovalev found out the hard way how hard it is to beat a popular American fighter in his first loss to Ward in 2016. Ward was given a questionable 12 round unanimous deciion in a fight that Kovalev appeared to win. In the rematch in June 2017, Ward hurt Kovalev with a right hand in the 8th round, and then landed several low blows that forced the stoppage of the fight by the referee. Needless to say, Kovalev wasn’t happy with how the referee Tony Weeks failed to make the call for the low blows.
Alvarez will train in his native country of Colombia to prepare for the rematch against Kovalev. This will be a voluntary defense for Alvarez against Kovalev, who is ranked #10 with the World Boxing Organization. Alvarez has some tough contenders that are waiting for title shots against him in the future. One of them is #1 WBO Marcus Browne (22-0, 16 KOs), who can punch and box and is young at 27-years-old. What Browne lacks is experience against upper level opposition. He might not be ready to face the best at this early stage of his career.