Kathy Duva: “It doesn’t matter where the Kovalev vs. Ward fight is, it matters who walks out with their hands up, and that’s gonna be Sergey!”

The CEO of Main Events, Kathy Duva, is heading into a promising year for her promotional company as she has one of the most talked about stars in boxing with WBA/WBO/IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Duva is looking to start the year off with a bang, as Kovalev’s next fight will be a rematch with Jean Pascal, a fight that produced Sergey’s toughest test to date. Main Events also signed Kovalev up for a fight with super middleweight champ, Andre Ward, set to happen in the fall. 

I recently spoke to Kathy Duva to discuss a variety of topics on the boxing landscape. Duva talks about the rematch between Kovalev and Pascal, and the reason they decided to do a second fight. Kathy also talks about a potential Stevenson-Kovalev fight and what it will take to make this fight. Additionally, Duva speaks about the fall fight with Andre Ward and how she expects it to play out. Here is what Kathy Duva had to say.

Robert Brown: Why is Sergey Kovalev having a rematch with Jean Pascal? What was it that justified the rematch?

Kathy Duva: When the fight ended, a lot of reporters were asking about a rematch. As you know, Pascal’s eardrum was injured early in the fight and he was very upset when the referee stopped it, he felt that he was alright to continue. I think that it was best that the referee did stop it, especially later when we learned about the nature of the injury but injuries happen and they do affect your performance.

You have two warriors and they’ll make a great fight, and there’s the added element of Freddie Roach now in Pascal’s corner. Will Sergey be motivated? Is he looking past him to the fight with Ward? The truth is, you’ve got two of the three or four of the best light heavyweights in the world in the ring together again, so of all the willing opponents that were willing to fight him now, Jean Pascal is still the very best.

(Listen to the full interview with Kathy Duva here)

Robert Brown: Katy, there has been a lot of talk about a possible Kovalev-Stevenson fight happening this year, do you think you will be able to sit down with Al Haymon and work out that fight?

Kathy Duva: Al Haymon won’t sit down and have a cup of tea because he sends his promoters out to do his business for him, so the problem is making a deal with someone who has no authority. I don’t blame the promoters, they come and they want to talk, they’ll say they agree but whatever it is at the end, it’s not their decision. That is always a problem and when I’ve objected to the fact that I’m negotiating with people who have no authority, they get very offended.

It’s really not about me an Al Haymon, the Glazkov fight was with a Haymon fighter, we had our fighter Isaac Chilemba fight Eleider Alvarez last month, so when Haymon wants to make a deal it gets done, we haven’t had a minute of trouble when he wants to make a deal. The problems come when he doesn’t want to make a deal, and this is obviously the case.

I’ve met with Ivon Michel and I keep hearing that it’s “Al’s decision.” We’ve let them know that there are other people — because of the way the schedules work right now with Sergey fighting in January and with the big fights in 2016, from April to June, there’s only one feasible date that’s even available for pay-per-view, and that is in June. We’ve let them know that there are other fighters who want that June date, HBO has been asking them to wait to give us a chance to try to complete this deal, and they’ve been told on Saturday that HBO isn’t gonna wait much longer. We’re making one last ditch attempt to try to close all of the elements of it.

Robert Brown: Andre Ward’s one of the most skilled fighters on the planet and Sergey Kovalev has beaten everyone that’s come his way. How do you see a Ward-Kovalev fight playing out?

Kathy Duva: I think it’s obviously two of the best, if not the two best pound for pound best fighters in the world fighting each other by the time it happens. Obviously there’s a lot of intrigue and excitement there, you have a really skilled boxer in Ward with an Olympic medal and with world titles, and you have Sergey Kovalev who didn’t get those kinds of accolades but has won three world titles and is also skilled and a very strong puncher.

I think it’s a perfect clash of styles, and not just boxing styles but just their personalities, everything about them is the opposite. I think it’s gonna be a really interesting fight for the media to cover and for the fans to watch, I think it’s gonna be a huge event when it happens, so we’re really excited about it. I hope we get there, we have a long way to go from here to there, everyone has to keep winning. There’s a lot of hurdles but the deal is in place and as long as everyone keeps winning and stays healthy, we should have ourselves a fight in November.

Robert Brown: Are you highly confident that if that fight happens that Kovalev has the tools to get past someone as skilled as Andre Ward?

Kathy Duva: Yeah, Sergey believes that if you want to be great you have to dare to be great, and the way to be the very best is to go out and fight the very best and win. John David Jackson has told me consistently that it’s a great fight for Sergey, he’s extraordinarily confident about it. John reacted the same way when I came to him and asked him what he thought about Bernard Hopkins.

Every time John says, “Bring it on,” and with Ward he seems particularly interested in. We have great confidence in Sergey and it’s about daring to be great. When you think of all of the great fighters that I grew up with: Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Duran, Holyfield, Tyson and Lewis, you just know they were great. In the end, there’s no loser in a fight like that, and that goes for both Sergey and Ward, and I give them credit for wanting to go out there to prove they’re the best.

Robert Brown: If the fight is in Oakland, do you think Kovalev will will worried about getting a decision against Ward?

Kathy Duva: As long as the ring is twenty feet he doesn’t care. As his manager says, it really doesn’t matter where the ring is, when it’s over it matters who walks out with their hands up, and that’s gonna be Sergey.