In an interesting little tidbit, Kathy Duva of Main Events mentions that Bernard Hopkins had a Friday 5pm deadline to sign a fight with WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Had he not signed on for the fight by this deadline, the IBF would have reportedly stripped Hopkins of his coveted IBF title. This would have surely thrown a monkey wrench in Hopkins ultimate goal of becoming the undisputed light heavyweight champion at age 50. But because Hopkins already had designs on becoming the unified titleholder, I don't really believe he was coerced into this fight with Kovalev, though it is interesting to hear that the IBF held his feet to the fire a bit.
"The fight was signed on Friday, in anticipation of the IBF's 5pm deadline. If we had not signed the contracts ahead of time, Hopkins would have been stripped of his title." Duva explained to World Boxing News.
"To tell you the truth, most of the reaction that I've seen seems to be going in other direction and for a Hopkins win," said Duva.
"I have seen some online polls and scanned many of the discussion threads on various websites and it looks as though the fan sentiments are closer to 50/50."
"This is by no means an easy fight for either competitor, but I guess that's what makes it so interesting," she added.
Clearly this has to be the most dangerous "50/50" fight in Hopkins illustrious career, and Kovalev would be well suited to not get into a chess-match with the crafty veteran. I'm 99% certain that Bernard's gameplan will be to utilize an abundance of lateral movement and the pick spots to ambush Kovalev, clinch, and repeat. What Kovalev needs to do is cut off the ring effectively and push the pace of the fight to make Hopkins show his age. Clearly stated, he cannot allow Hopkins to fight for only one minute per round. Should Kovalev allow Hopkins to drag him into a dull and drawn out affair, well all I can say is that Hopkins certainly knows how to win those kinds of fights.