Former light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev will bid farewell to his boxing career this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kovalev is 35-5-1 (29 KOs) and it was in 2013 that he seized the WBO title in emphatic fashion from Nathan Cleverly in Wales.<\/p>\n
That was 12 long years ago, and Kovalev admits he might not be the same beast that left a scene of destruction behind him in Cardiff.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, this is boxing. The ring will show, and how ready I will be,\u201d said Kovalev, when asked to compare the Kovalev of then and now. \u201cEverything depends on\u00a0 what we can bring with us\u2026 the weapons. But, right now, we\u2019re ready to fight, and this will be very big intrigue because it\u2019s already been a long time [since] I didn\u2019t fight again. The last fight was like a year ago. It\u2019s a long pause.\u201d<\/p>\n
That contest saw the former champion dropped on his way to a decision loss at cruiserweight against Robin Sirwan Safar in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And despite his decorated career, Kovalev leaves without achieving his main goal of becoming an undisputed world champion, having held the WBA, IBF and WBO titles but failed to get former WBC champion Adonis Stevenson in the ring.<\/p>\n
That has caused some lingering resentment for the Russian, who still refers to Stevenson by the derisory nickname he gave him years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Chickenson\u2019 avoided fights with me, and therefore my dream wasn\u2019t achieved,\u201d said Kovalev. \u201cIf it was not for Adonis Stevenson, I would be absolute champion in the world. But he wasn\u2019t ready to fight me. I achieved not everything what I wanted. I wanted to be absolute world champion, but I had only three titles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the best performance of his career, Kovalev lists several, from winning his first title to reclaiming a belt from Eleider Alvarez (who had defeated him six months earlier), outscoring Bernard Hopkins, and his second-round stoppage of Ismayl Sillah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arguably, Kovalev is perhaps best known for his two-fight feud with Andre Ward, who won a disputed decision against Kovalev in their first fight, but who stopped the hard-hitting Russian in their rematch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Andre Ward, I [was] disappointed with boxing, with judges, the politics. Last rematch [the second fight], I don’t remember much, you know, because, like, there was, behind the scenes a lot of trash, a lot of dirty things\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Kovalev still questions a drink of water he had after round one, because he doesn\u2019t recall what happened after.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, he won\u2019t class Ward as the best he faced, saying that every fight was important and that he had to treat them all as world title fights.<\/p>\n
And when he fought Canelo in 2019, he said he had not had the opportunity to recover from a taxing fight with Anthony Yarde several weeks earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Canelo, I fought like I was empty of energy, you know. I fought, like, before the Canelo fight in my hometown against Anthony Yarde, and Canelo\u2019s team didn’t give me rest after the fight. Like, just in two months I already fought Canelo in Vegas. It\u2019s crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it was the inexperienced Yarde who ran out of energy in their fight, and Kovalev caught up with him and stopped the Englishman in the 11th.<\/p>\n
Kovalev thought Yarde was a good fighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was impressed,\u201d said the veteran. \u201cI was, like, confused that he fought really, really good, and he never fought 12 rounds, and after round number seven [when Yarde went all out for the win], he \u2018died\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was only a couple of years beyond Kovalev\u2019s prime when fellow Russian\u2019s Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev emerged as divisional leaders. Kovalev had lost a narrow decision to Beterbiev in the amateurs, and Kovalev admits fights with both would have intrigued him.
\u201cIt should be very interesting to fight with these guys, the era with Bivol and Beterbiev, because this era pays a lot of money for the fights. They\u2019re very good fighters, both of them. Like, you see, they\u2019re real absolute [undisputed] champions, both. I agree with this. Well, for me, Bivol\u2019s better, because he has more movement and uses his legs more and has good footwork. He\u2019s more tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, of course, Kovalev is now looking to bow out while Bivol and Beterbiev prepare for their trilogy fight later in the year.<\/p>\n
Kovalev\u2019s light heavyweight days are firmly behind him, and he anticipates weighing around 186lbs on Friday.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he might join the likes of Ward in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, he said: \u201cI don’t know, I don\u2019t know. Maybe. I hope.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also hopes to inspire the next generation, and said that if his fights motivate a young boxer to pick up the gloves in the hope of achieving what he has, he will be content.<\/p>\n
And then, what will \u201cThe Krusher\u201d do in life after boxing?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am I going to do? I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to be busy with my kids [his son is 10, his daughter is six]. Have fun, you know, like, enjoy my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev will bid farewell to his boxing career this weekend.\u00a0 Kovalev is 35-5-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[15226,15225,15227,1935,9080,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-24702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-adonis-stevenson","9":"tag-andre-ward","10":"tag-anthony-yarde","11":"tag-boxing","12":"tag-sergey-kovalev","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114347578761489187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}