gilgamesh wrote:Enlightened-One wrote:gilgamesh wrote:The fact that he's widely called Adonis Chickenson online and has ducked the very best opponents available in the division shows he's not too respected by a lot of fans.
Even guys like Artur Beterbiev who are under the same promotional banner as him he's avoided.
I don't know why some people formulate opinions without checking the reasons why certain fights aren't happening by paying attention to the claims uttered by the proverbial horse's mouth:
And according to Yvon Michel, Beterbiev’s promoter, the plan is simple: defeat Kovalev and then stage a Stevenson vs Beterbiev light heavyweight superfight.
“We believe Kovalev is the second-best light heavyweight champion after Stevenson,” stated Michel earlier this week. “But Beterbiev is the real deal, so the goal is to send Beterbiev against Kovalev and to have all the titles under our promotion.”
Yvon Michel has persistently claimed that Beterbiev is going down the IBF route, since he wants all the 175lb belts under the control of his promotional banner... and the above quote is an example of the same explanation he has consistently cited during multiple interviews.
To be honest, I'm no fan of Adonis Stevenson, but that doesn't deter me from finding out the real reasons why certain fights aren't happening, since this approach is far better than making unfounded assumptions that probably aren't true.
Let's look at a similar situation, if the IBF install Kovalev and Beterbiev as their mandatory challengers to fight for their vacant title, Main Events won't participate in any purse bids, due to Sergey's exclusive contract with HBO.
If this happens, will people accuse Krusher as being a coward? Almost certainly not, even though this was the precise reason why Kovalev turned down an opportunity to face Adonis Stevenson... and Sergey actually received a free pass from casual fight fans for doing this.
And let's not forget that Beterbiev has won multiple IBF title eliminators, but Sergey Kovalev didn't face his highest ranked challenger (when he was the champ)... and did he receive any criticism for being a "coward"?
Do certain fight fans employ double standards?
Kovalev faced way stiffer competition as a titleholder than Stevenson has. Beterbiev beating Kovalev to create a "Superfight" with Stevenson seems like an ass backward plan to me, but whatever.
First of all, title unifications tend to generate more revenue/interest than champions merely facing their mandatory challengers. I could be wrong about this though, but in my mind, that’s what typically happens. Also, having more 175lb champions within the GYM stable grants Yvon Michel and Haymon more control over the division.
Second, it could easily be argued that the main reason why Sergey Kovalev has faced better opposition than Adonis Stevenson, is because the available opposition had strong ties with HBO, were free agents or were already tied to Main Events, such as: Andre Ward; Bernard Hopkins; Jean Pascal; Isaac Chilemba; Nadjib Mohammedi etc.
Kathy Duva openly admitted that she withdrew Sergey Kovalev from consideration from the WBC’s purse bid process to face Adonis Stevenson, because HBO wouldn’t have allowed them to stage the fight if they lost the bid. In fact, GYM recently outbid Main Events by a whopping 39% for the Beterbiev-Berrera fight.
And Yvon Michel has persistently claimed for several years that he wants Beterbiev to challenge for the IBF belt, which used to be owned by Sergey Kovalev… and by the end of April, Artur would have competed in three IBF title eliminators.
So I’m guessing that GYM wanted to force Kovalev to vacate his titles if the IBF demanded a purse bid process with Beterbiev, since it’s precisely the same scenario as the Stevenson situation. In my mind, Yvon Michel was looking to force Sergey to vacate his belt in order to instate his own fighter as the IBF champion.
And let’s not forget that GYM has very close ties with Al Haymon, who also advises Stevenson and Beterbiev… and Main Events filed and subsequently dropped a lawsuit against the PBC boss for allegedly violating the federal Muhammad Ali Act. Top Rank and Golden Boy filed their own lawsuits against Haymon for precisely the same reasons, which compounded the situation for Haymon’s stable of fighters.
We also know for certain that Ken Hershman, the former head of HBO sports, announced his intention in March 2013 to stop working with Al Haymon-affiliated fighters.
Another thing to consider… at one point in time, HBO claimed that they had verbally agreed terms for a deal with Adonis Stevenson to face Fonfara and then fight Sergey Kovalev, which hadn’t been signed yet. However, Stevenson subsequently hired Al Haymon, who wanted to renegotiate the deal with HBO, based Showtime’s better offer. HBO refused to revise their offer to Stevenson, knowing full-well that this would prevent the possibility of them televising the Kovalev-Stevenson title unification bout, since it was common sense for the Canadian to move to Showtime.
Unfortunately, all this political shenanigans, whilst completely boring, is the real reasons why certain fights could not be made at certain points in time. I guess you’re not really interested in reality though, since your recollection of events, such as citing Stevenson’s “cowardice” and Kovalev’s “bravery”, is far more interesting and exciting than the truth?