Bottom line is this: Adonis will fight Bhop for #1 @175 & Kovalev a no namer on hbo

Can't believe you are blaming Kovalev. If the other top fighters won't fight him how is he supposed to get a marquee win? Similar to GGG in that way. And I think you are under-rating his drawing power and over-estimating that of Hopkins, Kovalev has been on HBO a few times and a fight vs him and Stevenson would have been promoted and sold well. Its not as if Fonfara was a cash cow, people barely knew who he was.

What I have the biggest problem with is how the fight was made and then Stevenson backed out essentially. Why not fight Kovalev before moving to Showtime? Its as plain a duck as you will see imo, and its too easy to hide behind the network dispute. Imagine if Canelo went to HBO to fight somebody a fringe top 10 contender, would you not consider that a duck of Lara?

 

I wouldn't really compare Fonfara to Kovalev. Fonfara was #2 rated by the WBC and a debut fight for Stevenson on SHOWTIME. Kovalev is a far bigger and more dangerous fight to be considered as a debut for Stevenson. It would be a managerial failure to pick Kovalev for Stevenson as his SHOWTIME debut even if Kovalev was already with SHOWTIME. Regarding Kovalev' lack of opposition, again I must blame his management. Others were able to squeeze themselves a big fight, surely you wouldn't think Stevenson was well-known before his fight with Dawson yet his management were able to score him that fight. Same thing can be said about Golovkin who I'm a huge fan of.

Duck or not, it's a smart move from him and his management. Why risk it all in a fight that will barely get attention for the risk it will bring?. You can't deny that Stevenson was going to be the very first big name opponent Kovalev fights and Stevenson didn't want that and preferred to see Kovalev build his self up like Stevenson did before being worthy for a major main event. Didn't Leonard and his team do the same to Hearns before finally accepting that fight?, were they scared when they were stalling and waiting to see Hearns build up into a major name to be worth the big event?, I don't think so.