Sergey Kovalev retains light-heavyweight titles with hard-fought decision over Isaac Chilemba
Light-heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev remained undefeated Monday night, winning a hard-fought unanimous decision against challenger Isaac Chilemba at the DIVS Sports Palace in Ekaterinburg, Russia, near Kovalev's hometown.
The fight was broadcast on a delayed basis in the U.S. by HBO.
Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) retained his WBO, WBA and IBF belts in the action-packed 12-round title fight against Chilemba (24-4-2, 10 KOs). The fight was a warmup for Kovalev for his highly anticipated showdown in November against undefeated Andre Ward.
Kovalev came out looking to end it early, but Chilemba took every punch handed out by the hard-hitting champ, nicknamed "Krusher."
In the seventh round, Chilemba, 29, was knocked down, but managed to recover and lasted the rest of the fight. Chilemba joined future hall of famer Bernard Hopkins as the only fighters to go 12 championship rounds with Kovalev. The judges handed the victory to Kovalev by scores of 117-110, 116-111 and 118-109).
"I want to thank Kovalev and his team. I came here to fight. As I said before I have been short a couple times at my world title shot. Tonight I had three titles in the palm of my hand and I came here to give all I can," Chilemba said. "I believe I did give it my all and unfortunately I came up short. I am proud of my performance tonight even though I didn't get a victory tonight and I thank God for that."
Kovalev said his promoter, Kathy Duva of Main Events, chose a fighter in Chielba who is similar to Ward's style.
"When they told me that my opponent will be Chilemba because his style is similar to Andre Ward's style, I was thinking to myself, what's so similar to his style?" Kovalev said. "Their height is different, so at first I didn't see much, but after the fight I realize that, in fact, he does have similar style to Andre Ward's: waiting out and counter-attacks, he is not going in much, he waits in defense and waits for the right moment."
Kovalev said he was plagued by a cold he caught during his training camp for this fight but didn't say anything, so the information wouldn't get to Chilemba.
"Myself and my trainer (John David Jackson) worked hard to overcome this stage and prepared for the fight," he said, adding that he was unable to finish Chilemba after the knockdown in the seventh because it was too close to the bell.
"If it wasn't the end of the round I would have pursued to actively attack him," the champion said. "But because the bell rang, we rested and he managed to pull himself together and I didn't want to waste my energy. He is very experienced and had as many fights as myself and with boxers of highest level, therefore I was boxing and continue boxing and whatever happens, then it happens.
"There was no aim to knock him out, but the main aim was to gain experience from this fight for the next fight in November in Las Vegas."
Kovalev said that fighting in front of his hometown crowd for the first time as a champion was not as easy as he might have hoped.
"When I box as a visitor, there are much less fans that support me, there is more support for the opponents and I love to disappoint my opponents' fans, which is sort of a motivation," he said.
Duva, concurred, saying, "The toughest fight is always the one right before the big one and for a road-warrior like Sergey the toughest fight is the one at home," she said. "Tonight Sergey had both tonight. On top of that Isaac Chilemba fought the fight of his career tonight. Isaac deserves all the credit in the world for going 12 rounds with the Krusher. This is the type of tough fight Sergey needed to prepare for Andre Ward. Like the great champion he is, Sergey overcame all these obstacles and won."
(Kovalev, right, lands a right hand on Chilemba Monday night. Photo by Alexandr Safonov, Championat.com)