On Saturday, July 25, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, WBA Undisputed light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs), from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, by way of Kopeysk, Russia, will defend his WBA/IBF/WBO titles against WBA #2 ranked Nadjib “Irondjib” Mohammedi (37-3, 23 KOs), from Gardanne, Bouches-du-Rhône,France.
In anticipation of the fight, Kovalev met the press via teleconference call.
After stopping former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal in his last fight, many believe Mohammedi is a step down in class, unless of course you’re Krusher Kovalev, who never met a man he didn’t want to knock out.
“For me, any fight means a lot because it is the next step,” he said. “Who I am and how I do my job means a lot. He deserves this fight. I very excited that I have three titles and I have the opportunity to defend them against Mohammedi. He is very motivated. When a boxer is motivated or any man is motivated it makes him very dangerous.”
When Kovalev fought Pascal in March, the Haitian-born Canadian put on a better performance that most expected.
“I had some problems in my training camp for Pascal,” said Kovalev. “I made some mistakes. I started to make my weight very late. I celebrated New Year and Christmas in Russia. Christmas is biggest holiday in Russia. I got a lot of overfull. It made for me big trouble to make the weight for the fight. I didn’t have a good sparring partner for the fight. It was a lot of things. Right now everything is clean and going very well.”
Kovalev has fought in Russia, Canada, and all over the United States, but he has not fought in Las Vegas. That will change Saturday night.
“For me it doesn’t matter where I am fighting. I don’t have any problems. I feel very comfortable and happy that my fight is in Las Vegas. I wait a long time for my fight. I wanted LA or Las Vegas and it will happen July 25. I am very happy and excited because I wanted to give to my fans who have waited a long time to watch my fight live and now it will happen.”
As talented as Kovalev is, he believes the best is yet to come.
“I want to be better and want to be improved for every fight because a boxer can never be perfect,” the champion said. “One hundred percent everything is good? No. Every boxer wants to be better, better, better. My goal in my preparations is to get better and remove all my mistakes from last fight, to show people I can not only punch, I can also box. I am disappointed people couldn’t see in my first 14 or 15 fights. I can do boxing.
“I just started to get good opponents when I signed contract with Kathy Duva. Very big respect with Kathy Duva and her team that they got attention on my boxing. I am very happy that I signed a contract with Main Events and right now my career is going up. We give to boxing fans good boxing fight because right now it is very seldom in real fights. Because a lot of fighters are making business but not making boxing. I can count on my left hand who are the real fighters in boxing: Gennady Golovkin, Miguel Cotto and Keith Thurman and I don’t remember more. And maybe me. I don’t want to push me that I am the best, but if people are thinking it I am very happy. I wake every morning and get running and working hard. I happy that people are thinking that I am good boxer.”
Sergey Kovalev vs. Nadjib Mohammedi will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing starting at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
This article was penned by the author who is not related to the WBA and the statements, expressions or opinions referenced herein are that of the author alone and not the WBA.
