By Jim Dower: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) got the victory last Monday night over his opponent Isaac Chilemba (24-4-2, 10 KOs) in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision. However, it wasn’t as convincing as many boxing fans had hoped it to be.
This was supposed to have been a tune-up fight to get Kovalev ready for a much more difficult task of facing unbeaten Andre Ward on November 19. Perhaps one reason why Kovalev wasn’t as effective as many had hoped him to be was because he was ill during training camp for the Chilemba fight. Kovalev said he had a cold. Just how much this could have affected him for the fight against Chilemba last night is unknown.