Barrera & KovalevBack At MSG on March 3rd
It appears that Cuban light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera, 21-1 14KO, has once again turneddownan opportunity to face former unified and current WBO champion Sergey Kovalev. Instead Barrera will face WBA champion Dmitry Bivol, 12-0 10KO,on March 3rd.
The fight will be the co-featureto the Kovalev, 31-2-1, vsIgor Mikhalkin main event in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. The fight was first offered to Barrera, but Barrera declined for the second straight time to face Kovalev.
Accordingto a source inside Barrera’s team heagreed to a purse to fight Bivol before he even fought Felix Valera, 15-2, 13 KO, last month. The agreement would’ve allowed Barrera allowed him to face Kovalev if he so chose to.
Kovalev was able to win back the WBO title when he stopped Shabranskyy, 19-2, 16 KO, in the second round of their fight for the vacant WBO belt. The Russian had lostthe WBO belt alongwiththe IBF & WBA when he lostto former P4P king Andre Ward.
Mikhalkin, 21-1 9 KO, has won 10 straight fights since suffering his only loss back in May 2010. He also owns the IBO light heavyweight title although atthe time of publication he was not ranked inthe top 15 bythe WBO.
3KingsBoxing.com reached outto Kathy Duva of Main Events, who promotes Kovalev, Barrera and American rightsto Bivol, but she wouldn’t give any comment at this time.
By: Chris ‘Bone’ Henderson
