Ward should fight Kovalev, but Kovalev doesn't have to fight Stevenson

If you look at the circumstances and say that Stevenson ducked Kovalev for the money and ran to Showtime then you have to say Kovalev ducked Stevenson and ran to HBO for the money. Boxing politics played a part in both fights falling through.In both instances the fighters chose a network and/or money over the fight basically.

I don't like Stevenson and am pro Kovalev and it sucks to say it but the fight would have happened last time if it weren't for Kovalevs side backing out. After the Pascal fight his contract with HBO was over and his team said that now there was nothing getting in the way of the fight. Then when purse bid time shows up he signs back with HBO and it ruins the fight. Kovalevs team backed out under similar circumstances as Stevensons team. So everyone needs to stop being fanboys/hypocrites and realize this. You can't cry ducker against either fighter. Or are we going to act like children and cry who ducked first or last ?

 

Face it, Kovalev is DUCKING the Lineal Champ Stevenson. Kovalev will always be number 2 until he man's up. Seem's like he's waiting for Stevenson to get old though.

The pimp has already called Kovalev out and Kovalev's only response was to call him a chimp.

The man is petrified by Stevenson.

 

This.

Stevenson went for the money once, so did Kovalev pulling out of the purse bid.

They both went for the money. It sucks for boxing fans, but they are in a quite dangerous business, only idiots at their point (middle thirties) wouldn't go for the money.

 

#1 Ward is fighting tune ups
#2 Kovalev was on Stevenson's card in 2013 and they were supposed to fight each other next, but Stevenson ran away and signed with Haymon Protection Services.

Did you just start following boxing?

 

For me it's the opposite....

Ward doesn't have to fight Kovalev, however BOTH Stevenson and Kovalev HAVE to fight each other....

(Oh yeah, if Ward moves up to 175, he'll have to fight Kovalev BTW, I expect that fight in a few fights once he does).

 

Haymon is a pro in making it look like the other guy is ducking. That purse bid date being moved upward was brilliant.

 

If Stevenson agrees to fight on HBO, the fight will happen.

By the way, most of the lineal titles are ridiculous. Stevenson took his title from demoralized shot Dawson who then lost to Karpency. Even the previous history of the title is questionable with Pascal, Hopkins and Dawson beating each other.

 

Dawson was a trashy LHW champ.

 

... and he never recovered after being destroyed by Ward.

 

Yep.

 

This is accurate, I doubt either are avoiding each other, this is all a posturing game. At the end of the day, Kovalev's people didn't want to go to purse bid, Stevenson's people were ready to put it on the table whether winning or losing the purse bid. And before I hear I'm a Stevenson fanboy, I'm not a Stevenson and think Kovalev is the top LHW, but I call things without bias. It is what it is.

 

Hasn't Stevenson been calling out Kovalev for nearly a year now and publicly called him out after his very recent fight in the ring?. Why is he getting no response?.

If Kovalev called out Stevenson on twitter, idiots like you will be spamming this trash forum with threads about Kovalev' courage. But since it's Stevenson calling him out, I hardly see a single thread about it.

 

All too often fighters get accused of ducking. Fact is even if Kovalev wanted the fight which I think he clearly does, he is not in a position to accept any offer. Haymon wanted the offer to go to purse bids which of course mean he would win the bid having much deeper pockets than Duva and that means any fight would be on Showtime which is just an impossibility, no way would HBO would allow such a deal. Haymon knew this and knew they could never accept this offer and so the whole thing was a PR exercise.

But having said that, I repeat fighters too often get accused of ducking and this includes Stevenson. Fact is Showtime offered him more money to jump ship from HBO to Showtime, HBO simply needed to match the offer and they would have likely already fought. I can't really blame a fighter for going for the better financial deal.

 

Ward doesn't need to fight Kovalev