Kovalev vs Agnew results: Kovalev retains title with crushing 7th round KO, rips Adonis Stevenson

Sergey Kovalev figured to be in easy tonight against unproven, unbeaten Cedric Agnew, and for the most part, it was an easy win. Kovalev scored three official knockdowns en route to a seventh round body shot knockout tonight in Atlantic City.

Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KO) got some decent looks defensively from Agnew (26-1, 13 KO), and after the fight said that Agnew did have good defense, but the key to breaking it was the left hand to the body. Kovalev had swept the fight on most scorecards before the finish, though Agnew may have won the first round.

Agnew, to his credit, basically went from fighting nobody to fighting Kovalev, and overall showed some good skills, including plus hand speed and a decent defense. But he was simply not in Kovalev's league, as the WBO titlist's power was too much for him to deal with. That said, he made Kovalev work more than more well-known recent foes like Nathan Cleverly, Gabriel Campillo, Cornelius White, and Ismayl Sillakh, all of whom were done much sooner than Agnew.

It's tough to imagine Agnew getting another HBO call after this, however, as he was tentative to a fault, both in terms of being competitive in the fight and making the network want him back with his style and lack of name value.

After the fight, HBO's Max Kellerman, representing the network's jilted lover stance on WBC and Ring Magazine champion Adonis Stevenson, asked Kovalev about his woulda-been rival. Kovalev replied, "I don't want to talk about Adonis Stevenson. He is a piece of shit."

It's unclear, however, what type of fight Kovalev can go into next. There is a dearth of quality challengers at 175 pounds, especially when taking out the guys managed by Golden Boy and/or Al Haymon. Another fight against someone like Agnew wouldn't be surprising, because there just aren't many notable contenders out there in the weight class.