IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) respects the power that WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KOs) will be bringing to their fight this Saturday night on HBO Championship Boxing at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, Hopkins feels that he’s got more ways to beat Kovalev than he does.
Hopkins figures that all he needs to do is nullify Kovalev’s power and he’ll have the fight won. That’s obviously going to be a lot easier said than done, because Kovalev is going to be on top of Hopkins for the full 12 rounds looking to blast him out with each shot. If Kovalev does fade in the later rounds, it likely won’t be unless the 8th or 9th. By then, he’ll have hit Hopkins with a lot of really hard head and body shots, and that might take a lot of the fight out of the aging 49-year-old.
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