Eleider Alvarez: plans to return Dec 8, either to rematch Kovalev or unify with Bivol

Storm has morphed from a long-running joke (caught in that endless mandatory/step-aside loop with Adonis Stevenson, and even before that seeing a lot of his prospect shine begin to fizzle in direct proportion to his contests generally lasting the distance and sometimes veering into boring territory) into somebody to be taken with utmost seriousness almost quite literally overnight.

 

I somehow don't think HBO is going to dig deep into its exceedingly smaller boxing budget to do this and go up against a big MMA PPV on that date.

 

Nice. Either fight will be exciting.

Now that he's shown he's for real we can completely eliminate the possibility of Aduckis Rapiston ever facing him.

 

There isn't as much viewership overlap as you may think.

 

HBO is low-balling everything. They'll say 'we want the unification' and put up chump change and the fight won't be made.

Probably already have a reasonable price for Kova rematch written into their contracts. Sergei will take that or get pushed to the side of the road and see if Main Events can pick up the pieces.

 

Hoping for a fight with Bivol. Kovalev should retire, not interested in seeing him fight again.

 

While, in direct contrast, we have Kovalev seemingly overnight going from "the man of the division now as of the retirement of Ward and until & unless somebody like Bivol or Gvozdyk comes along to knock him off the perch" to not uncommon sentiments like this:

Funny sport.

 

I expected either a Kovalev rematch or a low level title defense from Alvarez first, like most fighters who score an upset title win. Great to see (at least in talk) that he's going for a unification fight right away.

 

A fight with Bivol its what needs to happen!!! Kovalev just got krushed, he will get ko again, so no need for that anytime soon! Let him heal or retire

 

IMO the real victim in all this is Bivol, the way events have played out. Despite having earned it with the unambiguous victory over Kovalev and now the commendable self-avowed near-future career path, I can foresee many fans simply refusing to give Álvarez his due respect - and in turn not give Bivol much credit for knocking him off in a unification. They'll just say "oh, Álvarez was average in the first place and Kovalev was just "shot" by then, so meh..." - whereas if Bivol had been the one to dethrone him, even if via decision rather than by KO like Álvarez, it would have given him a stronger boost than does this vicarious second-hand business...

 

I respect EA. Came to fight and it paid off. Made Kov look old within the blink of an eye.

Although I had Kov up prior to the KO, I don’t think I need to see the rematch. Krusher should ride off into the sunset and fight easier fights to make some bucks. Bivol is too good for him, heck even Beterbiev (wherever he is) may blow him out too.

EA deserves the big fight. Set it up with Bivol. Winner calls out Stevenson, not that it will matter.

 

Unless Kovalev is completely ruined from that 7th round shocker he should still be slightly favored to take the rematch... I had the same card as Lederman(6-1 in Krushers favor) and despite Alvarez having his moments early on it appeared that Kovalev was pulling away and starting to break him down before that over hand right landed. That really was an impressive turn around from the Canadian based Colombian.... Kovalev definitely has lost a slight step but he isn't shot as some saying. That's a good win.