The current and next generations of Light Heavyweight destroyers show their stuff in Atlantic City, N.J., later this evening (Sat., Aug. 4, 2018) when Sergey Kovalev and Dmitry Bivol defend their respective titles against Eleider Alvarez and Isaac Chilemba.
MMAmania will deliver LIVE coverage of ?Kovalev vs. Alvarez,? starting with the HBO Boxing broadcast at 10 p.m. ET later this evening.
The HBO Boxing main event, pitting the venerable ?Krusher? against the undefeated Alvarez, is by far the more competitive match up of the two, so let?s open this thing up and take a look at the nuts and bolts.
Name: Sergey ?Krusher? Kovalev Age: 35 Record: 32-2-1, 28 KO Last Five Fights: Igor Mikhalkin (TKO-7), Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (TKO-2), Andre Ward (TKO-8 Loss), Andre Ward (SD Loss), Isaac Chilemba (UD) Significant Victories (other than those mentioned above): Jean Pascal x2, Bernard Hopkins, Nathan Cleverly, Gabriel Campillo VS.
Name: Eleider ?Storm? Alvarez Age: 34 Record: 23-0, 11 KO Last Five Fights: Jean Pascal (MD), Lucian Bute (KO-5), Norbert Dabrowski (UD), Robert Berridge (UD), Isaac Chilemba (MD) Significant Victories (other than those mentioned above): Edison Miranda, Isidro Ranoni Prieto THE FIGHT
Alvarez has been due for a title shot since 2015, when he beat Chilemba to become the mandatory challenger for Adonis Stevenson?s WBC belt. ?Superman? instead elected to give Alvarez step-side money multiple times and fight whoever he wanted, and after the WBC allowed Badou Jack to jump the line and ordered Alvarez to face surging Oleksandr Gvozdyk, ?Storm? decided he?d had enough of the sunk cost fallacy and went after Kovalev.
As good as Alvarez is, he?s generally slightly less entertaining than the summary of how he got here. He?s got a good jab, good combinations, and can work the body when he needs to, but none of his recent fights have been memorable aside from when he decided to let loose against Bute.
That?s more than a little problematic against Kovalev, who despite the gaudy knockout rate is a rock-solid technician. Alvarez can?t go jab-for-jab with him because the Russian?s jab is as hard as the average fighter?s power punch and Kovalev?s volume generally ensures that enough of those shots will land to put anyone away.
The only clear avenue to victory against Kovalev, which Andre Ward demonstrated, is to stay in his face and punish the body. Alvarez, unfortunately, has not shown that level of infighting craft or aggression against anyone but the fading Bute. He?s not going to outbox Kovalev and if he can?t bully him, then it?s just a matter of time until ?Krusher? lands clean. I figure we?ll get to around the halfway point of the fight before Alvarez finally succumbs to the power.
