As his career winds down, WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev hopes to beat the cash cow in the sport of boxing when he battles unified middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on November 2 in Las Vegas.
While he is moving up two weight classes, Alvarez is the favorite in this fight, and part of the reason that he is the favorite is that many believe Kovalev is slowing down, but the last time we saw him, he was able to stop Anthony Yarde. However, before stopping Yarde, Kovalev was almost stopped himself in that fight, and like others, including Andre Ward, Yarde had a lot of success going to Kovalev’s body.
Even with the evidence, the 36-year-old Kovalev believes that his vulnerability to the body is a myth.
“Why everybody thinks that I have a problem with the body shot?” Kovalev said on a conference call on Tuesday. “Why? I never was attacked by body shot, you know.”
When reminded about the second fight with Ward(Kovalev stopped by body shots), Kovalev had this to say.
“Second fight Andre Ward was a low blow, low blow,” he said. “It wasn’t a punch to the body. Was a low blow. I said already like after the fight, it was a low blow.”
Of course, Kovalev is not going to admit that he issues dealing with body shots, but it’s clear that Kovalev does not like it to the body, and Canelo is a vicious body puncher. So, expect Alvarez to spend a lot of time going to Kovalev’s body on November 2, and if he can handle it, maybe Kovalev walks out of the ring still a champion.
Photo/courtesy: David Spagnolo/Main Events
