LAS VEGAS — To understand the anger burning inside Sergey Kovalev, you have to reach back into his personal odyssey. In the beginning, there was a place in Russia called Chelyabinsk, one of the country’s major industrial centers.
“Back home,” he will tell you, “there are a lot of poor people, and they live the way I told you my parents do. My mother operates a fork lift in a factory. The wages are low. My father is a welder. His wages are low. Food costs keep rising.
“We have always been poor. When I was 11, I washed cars and sold newspapers on the street.”
So his was the story of Job, wearing a protective cup and boxing shoes; of Ulysses lost and found; of a nomad of the open road, alone with his manager and a dream, scraping out a boxing career in 18 American cities where almost nobody knew his name. He fought in garages and gyms.
“Maybe you should fight as a super middleweight,” his manager told him, because nobody cares about light heavyweights, and nobody pays money to see them.
“Don’t worry,” Kovalev reassured him, “I will make the light heavyweight division famous.”
They had come to America — Egis Klima, a manager who actually cared about his fighter, and Kovalev, who simply wanted a chance to fight. But nobody cared.
Don Turner, an old friend of the Duva family and a trainer for Evander Holyfield, saw Kovalev fight in Russia and invited the manager and the fighter to use his fight camp in North Carolina as a home base. Through Turner, they reached Kathy Duva, the promoter.
Duva, who runs Main Events, listened. She became his promoter. He won 19 fights. She tried to put him on HBO and an executive no longer with the company told her:
“You have two strikes against you. He’s a Russian and a light heavyweight. The last thing we need is a Russian light heavyweight.”
He didn’t say, “Don’t let the door hit you in the rear end on the way out.” But it sure as hell was implied.
But they were a determined trio. Kovalev won all the light heavyweight championships. Cynics say, ”So what?” Being the champion of all the light heavies these days is like being buggy whip manufacturer of the year in 2017.
And then Kovalev lost his titles in a highly controversial decision to Andre Ward, whom he will fight again on Saturday. In Kovalev’s mind, this second time around is more exorcism than rematch. Two days ago, at Mandalay Bay and Casino, the host hotel, he made that crystal clear:
“Ward got a gift the first time, the best gift he received in his life,” Kovalev said. “He hit me with little punches, punches like a girl. None of his punches hurt me. They were little punches and the judges counted them. That’s what they saw. The public and anyone watching that fight saw something else.”
And Ward’s role as the good guy in this matchup?
“He and his team are liars. He said that he gave me this rematch as a present for the boxing fans. Don’t lie. He had to fight me again. It was in the contract that you must give me [the rematch] or you retire. Jay-Z paid him, like, $7 million, so, of course, he gives [the rematch],” Kovalev said.
