On Saturday night, fans finally saw Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson in the ring together. Unfortunately, their brief verbal taunts will likely be the closest we’ll ever see the fighters, who are signed to rival entities, to unifying the light-heavyweight division.
Blame can be placed on both sides. When Stevenson was still signed to HBO, he had no intentions of making the Kovalev bout and quickly jumped to Showtime/PBC with Al Haymon’s backing. Later, Kovalev’s promoter Main Events balked at a purse bid for fear of losing the option of placing the fight on HBO.
With that said, whose legacy is hurt most by this fight not happening? Now that Kovalev has secured an Andre Ward for later this year, the onus is more on Stevenson to compromise and make this fight, or continue on with the overmatched foes we’ve seen for the last year.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 