Kathy Duva talks Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson

Sergey Kovalev of Russia (center) with his mother and with former NHL player Alexei Kovalev following his second win over Jean Pascal at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titlist Sergey Kovalev emphatically beat down Jean Pascal on Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal to record his second win over the Canadian resident in the space of 10 months, this time by seventh round corner retirement.

Kathy Duva, CEO of Main Events, was very pleased with her star client’s performance.

“Sergey found a way to make a statement in a fight people didn’t expect to be competitive,” Duva explained to RingTV.com on Monday morning. “He did an amazing job. He felt he had unfinished business there, with all the insults and what not caused him to decide to be very emphatic and beat (Pascal) in a certain way and what’s amazing, I think, was the way he went about it.

“Everyone expected (Kovalev) to win but he decided he was going to take his time; it was like watching a lion stalk his prey. He didn’t just want to win the fight; he wanted to take him apart and I think humiliate him because Pascal had spent the previous week doing everything he could think of to humiliate Sergey.”

Duva believes the methodical, “slow pain” approach was calculated and designed to make Pascal quit.

“He told the announcers from HBO in the meeting the day before the fight he was going to (make Pascal quit) and he did.” said Duva.

Pascal’s behavior helped dispel Duva’s biggest concern: Would Kovalev be motivated?

It brought out the assassin in “Krusher.” He didn’t just want to win; he wanted to “krush” Pascal.

“He sets goals the whole time,” she explained. “Clearly he was trying to make him quit. Pascal was too proud to quit, so it was good that his corner did it for him.”

Pascal entered the ring with his hero and former trainer, Roy Jones Jr., rapping his entrance music; he also had sought out the expert boxing minds of Freddie Roach and former heavyweight titlist/now trainer Chris Byrd. It seems none of them could help him once he stepped into the ring.

When Roach pulled the plug between the seventh and eighth rounds, Kovalev won a $ 50,000 side bet he made with Pascal that he would stop him before the eighth round.

Kovalev traveled to Russia on Sunday and will donate the money to poor children. He is also working on setting up a foundation while in his homeland.

During the HBO interviews – and not for the first time this year – things went a little WWE. On this occasion, it was WBC beltholder Adonis Stevenson who entered the ring to address Kovalev.

“Well, it wasn’t even a good Tyson Fury impression,” joked Duva. “(Stevenson) gets in the ring with four or five bodyguards and does this whole ‘Hold me back’ thing. It was comical. Sergey gave him the finger and turned his back on him and walked away.”

Last week, it was announced that a proposed June fight between Kovalev and Stevenson for all the light heavyweight marbles had fallen through.

“We offered them the fight; we had a contract with them for six weeks,” she explained. “Talks with Yvon (Michel, Stevenson’s promoter) started back in October. Yvon and I thought we had got through every term. Yvon was satisfied. We were very happy with it but, of course, he said, ‘We don’t have a deal until Al (Haymon) and Adonis sign off on it.’ He took the contract six weeks ago after negotiations, where they asked for things that we gave them. They asked for a guarantee; we gave it to them. They asked HBO not be able to keep any futures.

“At the first meeting, I made a point of saying the fight has to be on HBO. There will be no joint promotion with another network. That was the premise of the negotiation, when all was done. When I gave in on every term, when there was nothing left for them to ask for, they came back and asked for HBO to share distribution rights with Showtime.

“About a week ago, I told them that’s not going to work. Yvon went back to Al Haymon a week ago today (Monday, Jan. 25) and I asked for a deadline of last Tuesday and I got an email from him early Wednesday, saying they were gonna pass because it had to be a Showtime/HBO distribution, which is absurd.

“The problem with trying to revive it, as I’ve told them since October, is fighters want the June pay-per-view date. We can’t do it in April because Manny Pacquiao has the date. We can’t do it in May because Canelo (Alvarez) is gonna fight and that leaves us with June and July. July is a dreadful pay-per-view window and Sergey has an agreement with Andre Ward. He can’t fight anyone after June. HBO wanted an answer weeks ago and kept extending, then Yvon asked for the deadline of last Tuesday and he was unable to deliver the fight.”

It’s not the first time Stevenson has approached Kovalev. Last November when Kovalev was in Montreal to announce the rematch with Pascal, he attended the James DeGale-Lucian Bute fight in the evening and Stevenson made an appearance.

“He was saying the same stuff he was saying Saturday night, ‘50/50, lets do the fight.’ and he was saying it has to be HBO and Showtime and, that night, I said, ‘No, Sergey’s the man. He fights for HBO. He has a contract with HBO. He’s the star now. You don’t get to dictate everything and you don’t get to dictate the network, especially when you haven’t fought on Showtime in over a year. You don’t even have a contract with Showtime.’”

Duva makes a good point. Stevenson last fought on Showtime in Dec. 2014, when he fought Dmitry Sukhotsky. He has fought twice since, both on Premier Boxing Champions shows.

“Why would you let the ‘B’ side dictate a term that is going to damage the best relationship you have in the business; why would anyone do that? You’d have to be out of your mind to do that.” she said continuing.

“Stevenson was being built up by HBO along with Sergey. They were built up to face each other; the build-up was working, Stevenson became a big star. Sergey was the ‘B’ side at that time on the way to becoming a star. He walks away from HBO; his career takes a nosedive. Sergey, meanwhile, has moved up to the point where people are saying he’s No. 1 pound-for-pound. Stevenson isn’t on anyone’s pound-for-pound list. He couldn’t sell 50 tickets in Canada at this point. Nobody cares about him.

“Sergey is being asked back to Montreal to fight as a regular against whomever. They want to make him their local star. Stevenson is getting offered a 50/50 split for one reason: Sergey wants that WBC belt and he’s willing to give (Stevenson) the money and it’s a lot of money. We just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have the excuse, ‘I’m not being treated fairly,’ all this other B.S. ‘I’m the champion.’ I said, ‘You know what? Here it is: 50/50, you’re a world champion. You’ve got one belt. My guy has three. OK, I’ll give you 50 percent but this is the last time it’s going to be offered to you. After Sergey fights Ward, don’t think there’s a chance in the world 50/50 is coming around again. Just understand I have a date. I have a venue. I have HBO lined up. Everything was done. Yvon was on board. This guy blew the deal. He doesn’t want to fight.”

Duva is unsure if the  much-maligned Haymon or Stevenson scuppered the deal.

“You tell me! Is he gonna tell his manager he’s gonna take the fight or not? How many fighters have been quoted saying, ‘Al says I can take whatever fight I want.’

“I don’t know if Stevenson wants to fight or not; I can’t look in his heart. I don’t know. I do believe Yvon Michel wanted the fight and worked very hard to make it; he’s a very good promoter.

“Al’s the one with the final decision and it’s telling to me what Yvon said. He didn’t say I have to meet with Adonis; he said, ‘I have to go to Vegas to meet with Al.’ So that’s who turned it down, no doubt. Whether he did on behalf of his client with his client’s consent or not, you never know. As a fiduciary, as a manager of a fighter, he is turning down what is clearly the very best opportunity for his 38-year-old fighter.

“By the time Sergey’s fought Ward and whatever mandatories we’ll be doing. (Stevenson is) is going to be approaching his 39^th birthday before we can even address this again and he won’t be getting a 50/50 split after Sergey’s beaten Andre Ward and, frankly, at that point – who needs him? He’s risking losing his title every time he gets in the ring because he’s not that good.”

With Pascal, and now Stevenson, appearing to be in the rearview mirror, Kovalev will fight in June, likely in Russia but going back to the Great White North is also an option.

“We’ll be having conversations with some of the contacts that we made in Russia when we traveled there last year. Now seems to be the time this will happen.

“We’ve also had the people from Interbox and the Bell Centre ask us about coming back to the Bell Centre in June.

“We’re going to explore those possibilities and make a decision as soon as we have all the information.”

They may well look to fight one of their mandatories but Duva says there is no immediate pressure.

“The way the sanctioning bodies work, they take it in turns [with mandatories], when you have multiple championships, so, typically, the IBF, you have one every nine months. That doesn’t happen when you’re a unified champion. The organizations take it in turns, so, at this point, we don’t have any clarity on who the No. 1 contender is but the WBO is next in line, so we will find out who that is. I believe, by their rules, it’s not due until the fall, we’ll see, we might well do one of those, out of order, in advance.”

One of those mandatory situations could be made easier if Andre Ward – who’s locked in to face Kovalev in November – faces and beats the IBF’s No. 1 Sullivan Barrera, a fight currently in the works for late March.

The Ward fight, provided both guys safely come through previous engagements, will be in November on pay-per-view.

“We have agreements in place,” Duva said “It’s just a matter of both of them staying healthy and winning.”

Thankfully, Ward doesn’t seem to be as keen to avoid the Russian monster as Stevenson, who seems to say all the right things but, as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

Chris Byrd

After the fight, Duva and Kovalev received an unexpected guest in Chris Byrd, a member of Team Pascal. Byrd was full of praise for what he had just witnessed.

“Chris is of the opinion nobody is going to beat Sergey,” Duva revealed. “He just kept saying, as the fight went on, he became more and more impressed with him. From someone like Chris Byrd, he knows his stuff. He sees the nuances that a lot of people don’t and he was just blown away by it.

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected] and you can follow him at www.twitter.com/AnsonWainwright

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