Things can change so dramatically in the sport of boxing. It was just a few years ago that Sergey Kovalev was on top of the sport as an undefeated, unified champion at 175 pounds. The powerful Russian held the IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titles and was becoming a staple on HBO’s airwaves as he built up a strong popularity amongst boxing fans.
Kovalev was 30-0-1 (26 KO’s) at the time and headed for a pay per view showdown vs. The great Andre Ward, in Las Vegas. Kovalev would end up losing to Ward via a razor-thin unanimous decision in November of 2016 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. Kovalev was able to score a second round knockdown, yet Ward rallied over the second half of the fight to secure a victory of 114-113 on the three judges’ cards. Team Kovalev cried foul, citing a robbery, and a rematch was set.
On this night, seven months later in June of 2017, Kovalev suffered a far worse defeat, as Ward hammered him with a big right hand and punished him along the ropes with body and head shots, some feeling as though some blows were low, for an 8th round TKO victory.
Kovalev rebounded with victories over Vyacheslav Shabranskyy and Igor Mikhalkin that also allowed him to recapture his WBO title, and that led us to Sergey’s fight this past weekend in Atlantic City. An upcoming title defense against tough Colombian prospect Eleider Alvarez wasn’t looked at as a huge danger, but it definitely proved to be disastrous.
Through the first six rounds of the fight, Kovalev was ahead on the scorecards despite a spirited effort from Alvarez. In the seventh round, Alvarez unleashed a monster right hand that dropped Kovalev. Sergey rose, only to be greeted by a barrage of blows that dropped him two more times and ended the contest. Just like that, a proposed unification vs. WBA champion Dmitry Bivol went up in smoke, and, at age 35, Kovalev may be looking at the end of his road.
In a recent article by RingTV.com, Kovalev’s former trainer and two-time champion John David Jackson recently expressed his thoughts on Sergey’s defeat to Alvarez.
“Not at all,” Jackson said when asked if he was surprised. “I called a friend of mine in London and found out the result. It’s why I say he was right when he said I didn’t train him. I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to teach or show him anything if he wasn’t willing to learn.”
Jackson does admit that he wasn’t involved in Kovalev’s camp for the Ward rematch.
“He was real hard to work with,” Jackson added. “He said I didn’t work with him for the first [Andre] Ward fight. He lied about that, but the second fight, he’s right, I didn’t work with him at all. He wanted me out of the way, so I got out of the way. When he was winning, things were great. As soon as he lost, it was my fault.”
Jackson didn’t stop there, however.
“So, when he got stopped, I wasn’t surprised,” Jackson said. “Karma is a bitch. The things he had been doing to everyone around him came back to bite him in the ass. I wasn’t happy when I heard he got stopped. But I will say he got what he deserved. Without proper training, he got his ass whipped. There was no shock at all there; the handwriting was on the wall.”