After what appeared to be a solid verbal agreement to fight on November 19th in Las Vegas on HBO pay-per-view, negotiations between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev have hit a rough patch now placing the showdown in jeopardy.
According to Kathy Duva, who promotes Kovalev, Ward and his promoter Roc Nation Sports are attempting to change the terms of a verbal agreement to fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Usually the most fun that someone in my position can have as a boxing promoter is to be able to announce that the biggest fight of the year, that everyone can’t wait to see, between two of the top 5 best fighters in the world is taking place. Both of them with undefeated records. Usually it’s a lot of fun and I hope perhaps at some point this promotion will become fun. At the moment I am just here to tell you that we are planning to fight on nov 19, we expect that fight will be taking place some where and when we find out where that is we will let you know.
“there was an agreement in place to fight at T-Mobile as far as I’m concerned.”
Ward, who defeated Alexander Brand on Saturday Night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, and representatives from Roc Nation were not scheduled appear at Tuesday’s press conference to dispute or shed further light on the claims made by Main Events. Ward and Kovalev reached an agreement in April to fight each other in a future bout should they both win in separate bouts. Kovalev defeated challenger Issac Chilemba in July.
The premium network has agreements with both fighters.