Sergey Kovalev notched his second straight win on Saturday night in Madison Square Garden vs Igor Mikhalkin as he improved to 32-2. Kovalev would receive a hard-earned seventh round victory via TKO against Mikhalkin to retain his WBO and IBA light heavyweight titles. This was also Kovalev’s second straight win in this venue. In November at MSG, he defeated Vyacheslav Shabranskyy by a second round TKO.
Coming into this fight, Kovalev knew he was going to have a challenger in Mikhalkin. Both hail from Russia and want to be the the best from their country.
In the first round, Kovalev took the early edge with some jabs to the body of Mikhalkin. Kovalev would continue that momentum into round two as he continued to work the body to his advantage.
In round three, Kovalev slipped on the canvas and was able to regain control on defense but Mikhalkin was still able to capitalize with some solid body shots. Both fighters started to become more aggressive in the fourth round as they each landed headshots to each other.
Kovalev and Mikhalkin exhibited fatigue in the fifth round but Kovalev had the advantage heading into the sixth as he knocked Mikhalkin into the ropes to regain control of the fight.
In the sixth round, Kovalev was able to find an opening and land a powerful headshot to Mikhalkin that caused him to bleed from his nose and have significant damage to his face. Mikhalkin would get some body shots on Kovalev to close the round but it was still evident that he was losing strength.
In the seventh round, Kovalev knew that Mikhalkin was fatigued and injured so he quickly took advantage. He landed a fierce shot to Mikhalkin’s jaw and that opened up room for a few headshots. This resulted in the fight being stopped with Kovalev earning another TKO win.
I asked Kovalev how he was able to find an opening to land the headshot that had Mikhalkin bloodied in the seventh round despite a solid offense by Mikhalkin and if he was going for an early knockout.
“I was able to catch him with a right and left hook but I tried to do this early in the first and second round,” said Kovalev. “He’s not an easy opponent. People see him as an unknown fighter but I’ve always known about him.” “I wasn’t going for the early knockout but I was looking for the hook that would slow him down.”
Sergey Kovalev is now officially back to being the “Krusher” again along with being a dominant world champion. He said that he is aiming for his next fight to be in July. New York City hosting his fight for a third consecutive time is a huge possibility as Kovalev said in his press conference on Wednesday that Madison Square Garden is now his favorite arena to fight in.
Flip the pages to see the shots by Kovalev on Mikhalkin that earned him the TKO victory in the seventh round.