Why do I feel that Haymon and GYM promotions won't have a problem letting Beterbiev fight Kovalev on HBO but they wouldn't want Stevenson to go on HBO. I feel like they are using Beterbiev as Stevenson's body guard. I don't know, I hope I'm wrong. If anything they should be hyping and building up Beterbiev, who is a better fighter imo. As a Beterbiev fan, I know he needs way more experience to take on someone like Kovalev.
This is the fight I've really wanted to see. Kovalev-Stevenson/Beterviev and Ward-Golovkin are all excellent fights but if I had to pick just one from 168-175 it would be Ward-Kovalev. Unlike Kovalev-Stevenson this is actually a very makeable fight, from a network standpoint. Ward probably needs another fight after Smith before facing someone like Kovalev but this should be the fight HBO is pushing to make sometime next year.
No he's not. Kovalev sells more tickets in a foreign country than Ward does in his home town, and does better TV ratings. And unlike Ward has more than 12 fans. Kovalev is a bigger draw than Ward, and Ward will pretend not to know this to duck the fight, like he did against Froch this month (lolz at Ward thinking he could sell out Wembley, like he's a bigger draw than Groves in the UK atsch) and like he's doing with Golovkin.
Stevenson is old and Haymon needs to cash him out. I think they will get the fight done before forcing a mando with Beterbiev.
I hope you're right. I wouldn't even mind a cash out agaisnt Beterbiev, but obviously Kovalev vs. Stevenson is a much bigger fight=bigger payday.
Because no one has shown they can outbox kovalev, Hes severly underated timing, footwork and combination punching, clever and patient, He will hit ward anywhere he see's fit. Kovalev is stronger than Ward. Ward usually holds that advantage because he is a lhw really. Take beterbiev and Stevenson and ill give them a chance against Kovalev. Ward no, he will be broken down in brutal fashion, although I do rate him as a p4p fighter, bad styles, do you think those. I think Ward beats GGG. Its hard to explain how I am so confident that Kovalev would beat Ward. Because Ward is an elite talent. You can give me a great counter argument right now, and ill still believe kovalev would do a job on Ward. That's just it really, its not stubbornness, I just don't see Ward having more than 20% chance, especially at 175lbs. The catchweights ive been hearing are utter bollox. If ward wants the lhw titles he fights kovalev at the lhw division.
Actually you're the one who's clueless since Kovalev was a network free agent until this week, yet Duva still hid behind the network excuse as a valid reason to turn down the fight she'd been prattling about Stevenson ducking for over a year.
Depends on how Ward looks after that two year lay off.. If he looked as good as he did against Rodriguez and Dawson, then this could be a 50/50 fight. If not, Kovalev steamrolls through him.
They already had a deal in place last year and Stevenson jumped networks. Duva know she couldn't win the purse bid should she have just put in a bid and forfeited like Don King used to do? What good would that do? The fight was agreed to well over a year ago on HBO and Stevenson ducked it to go and fight bums while Kovalev has unified belts and been knocking people senseless or shutting them out on the cards.
Fight wasn't agreed to since HBO didn't sue and Duva dropped her suit. Why did Duva force Kovalev to pay sanctioning fees to become the mandatory to Stevenson at all if she wasn't interested in actually forcing the fight she claimed to want? And again, you completely ignored the point that Kovalev was free to fight on any network at the time the purse bid was ordered yet Main Events nevertheless hid behind the HBO excuse.
Rico, you have a lack of understanding on this, as with many other things. He is not with Showtime. He doesn't have a contract that binds him to fight only on that network. While Haymon works with Showtime, his fighters are not forbidden by contract or law to fight only on that network, as their fights on NBC, CBS, even BET illustrate. HBO doesn't bid for fights ... but it backs the bids and purses paid by promoters for fights on its network. When GGG or Kovalev fight on HBO, the promoters are offering purses that come from money that HBO agrees to provide. They don't say, "GGG, we'll give you $XXX to fight Monroe" and then go to HBO hopeful that the network will pay enough to cover the purses, they go to HBO and see what they can get for that fight and the purses are dictated by that. Duva asked for the purse bid. It was driven by her. If she didn't think she could win it, that was a pretty foolish move. Whatever she was going to be able to bid would have been determined by how much HBO would be willilng to back the bid. And HBO wasn't willing to pay Kova fair market value for arguably the best and most important fight that could be made for "their" fighter. Or else they would have told Duva to bid whatever it takes and provided the money so they could have had the fight on their network. Kova's caught (much like GGG) in the HBO black hole -- they tie up a fighter like this to a contract and figure they can invest minimal money in fights against non-marquee guys and get by with that ... and then the fighters and their promoter and their fans can scream to the high heavens about how they're being "ducked" -- yet it's their own deal with HBO that's keeping the big fights from being made, because HBO won't back the purses to make those marquee matchups. Easier and cheaper to shell out fewer bucks and have these guys fight opponents that present no challege. Kova is a pawn to HBO/Duva. They won't allow/participate in the purse bid because they aren't willing to put up fair market value (i.e. the highest bid) to keep the fight on their network ... and if they aren't willing to pay for it then they aren't willing to let someone else pay for it either -- and Kova is the biggest loser in this as he's the one not maximizing his in-ring or financial potential because his network/promotional team won't invest in their fighter.
HBO doesn't buy fights before they are made. They negotiate the license fee AFTER the purse bid. HBO doesn't tell Duva "yeah if you can win this bid we will give you 4 million" that is an agreement that can easily be reneged on by either side. It doesn't work that way. Duva has ZERO recourse if HBO were to change their mind and back out. Haymon is banned from HBO anyway. Had Stevenson not gone with Haymon/Showtime the fight was going to happen.