Kovalev faces Shabranskyy this Sat. for WBO title

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-2-1, 26 KOs) is thankful for the opportunity to fight Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (19-1, 16 KOs) this Saturday on November 25 for the vacant WBO World light heavyweight title on HBO from Madison Square Garden in New York. It’s been a really bad year for Kovalev, 34, with him losing twice in a row to Andre “SOG” Ward, and with many boxing fans giving up on him.

(Photo credit Craig Bennett/Main Events)

Under the right circumstances, Kovalev should be coming into Saturday’s fight with the 30-year-old Shabranskyy with a 1-1 record in his last 2 fights instead of the 0-2 record that he currently has. It’s widely believed that Kovalev fought well enough to deserve a 12 round decision in his first fight with Ward on November 19 last year at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The judges gave the fight to Ward by the scores 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113. However, Kovalev knocked Ward down in the 2nd round, and won at least 6 rounds of the fight.

With the knockdown, that should have been enough to give Kovalev the victory. The Ward-Kovalev rematch was also controversial with Ward hitting Kovalev with low blows in the 8th round that led to referee Tony Weeks stopping the fight and giving Ward a knockout win. That wasn’t the best way for Ward to win, and it was a terrible way for Kovalev to lose. That’s not to say that Kovalev would have won the fight. He looked tired, and on his way to losing. But you’d like to have seen the referee handle the situation better in round 8 with Kovalev getting hit by what seemed to be 3 consecutive low blows by Ward.

Kovalev had this to say about his opportunity to fight the Ukrainian Shabranskyy for the vacant World Boxing Organization light heavyweight title on Saturday night:

“Right now, God has blessed me and given me this opportunity to get back to this level. Maybe in the future, we can do unification fights between every champion. In every division, there must be one champion. I follow this goal, and right now I’m working on it.”

If Kovalev can beat Shabranskyy, he’ll have no shortages of opportunities to fight the other champions at 175 in unification matches. Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev are interested in fighting unification fights. WBC champion Adonis Stevenson might even be willing to fight Kovalev under the right circumstances. Stevenson fights on Showtime Boxing though, so it might be a little tricky to arrange a fight with him and Kovalev, who fights on HBO. If it’s a big enough fight, the networks likely wouldn’t be averse to having the two fighters face each other in a shared fight between the networks. It’s been done before.

Following his second defeat to Ward, Kovalev parted ways with his old trainer John David Jackson and replaced him with Abror Tursunpulatov. Kovalev says he’s working well with Abror, and he’s punching with more power than he ever did before. At 34, it’s difficult to imagine Kovalev gaining more power. Usually punching power is already there by the time a fighter is in his mid-30s.

Kovalev’s problems have nothing to do with his punching power. Kovalev was more than powerful enough to beat Ward in his last 2 fights. What failed Kovalev were his stamina, and his problems taking body shots. He couldn’t deal with the shots to the body that Ward was hitting him with. They wore Kovalev down. Kovalev also didn’t have the inside fighting skills for him to deal with close quarters fighting that Ward preferred. Kovalev should have been working on that part of his game exclusively, because Ward had showed in the past that he always takes it to the inside when he’s facing guys that have punching power.

It might have been better for Kovalev to hire a different trainer than Abror. The guys that fight Kovalev in the future are going to be looking to take the fight to the inside against him. Kovalev would have done well if he had signed on with Ward’s former trainer Virgil Hunter. He would have trained Kovalev well to handle inside combat so that other fighters couldn’t take advantage of that flaw in his game. Hunter also said that he would have improved Kovalev’s defense to keep him from getting hit to the body as much.

“Let me show you November 25 different boxing, the real Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev. I’ve changed a lot of things. I’ve deleted a lot of mistakes. It’s time to change,” said Kovalev in speaking in the third person.

At this stage of the game, it’s difficult to imagine Kovalev improving his flaws, especially with his inability to take body shots. That’s something that likely will never change. Kovalev’s stamina is also another area that will likely continue to be a weakness for him. Kovalev has worn down in his last 3 fights, and it’s become clear that he does not have the conditioning needed for him to fight long duration fights fought at a fast pace. That’s not what Kovalev is capable of doing.

Kovalev has been able to disguise his stamina problems due to his many early knockouts. By knocking guys out quickly, Kovalev’s conditioning problems weren’t as apparent as they are now. They were there though even as far as 2013, when Kovalev looked exhausted in the early going against former light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly. Ward obviously spotted how tired Kovalev looked against Cleverly, and figured he’d take advantage of those problems.

“Sergey’s made it very clear that this was all a wake-up call for him. He’s decided to get it together. You can’t be the champion of the world and out with your friends,” said Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva.

Kovalev’s last 2 defeats are a huge wakeup call for him. The question is can Kovalev regain the form he once had for him to become a world champion again or is he too old now at 34 to regain his championship level status.

Shabranskyy is going to be going after Kovalev on Saturday, and likely targeting his body to see if he can duplicate the results Ward had.

Kovalev should have too much offensive skills and power for Shabranskyy handle this Saturday, but you never know. If Kovalev is still mentally thinking about his losses to Ward, Shabranskyy could pull off an upset and potentially ruin his career.