I got quite a few comments this week about the Sergey Kovalev vs. Jean Pascal fight, which was garbage. The furor over Kovalev’s post-fight comments seemed to put people on two sides–the side that was horrified or at least disturbed by Kovalev’s admission about wanting to prolong Pascal’s beating, and the other side–the one that said, “Hey, they’re fighters. Let the ref take care of the beating.”
Either way, Kovalev solidified his place at the top of the list of terrifying human beings. And while the fight itself was awful, it left us with a cornucopia of excellent tweets, including this one:
GGG and Kovalev is like good cop, bad cop….
— LDN BOX (@LDN_BOX) January 31, 2016
This would be one of the greatest HBO dramas of all time.
Scene: Well-lit interrogation room. Suspect sitting on chair in front of large table. Gennady Golovkin is on the other side, leaning against a wall, large smile on his face, wearing a cardigan sweater. Behind him, Sergey Kovalev, wearing a long trenchcoat, stares menacingly at the suspect, cigarette hanging from mouth.
Golovkin: My friend, we’ve found evidence in your home. Why you lie?
Suspect: I ain’t talking.
Golovkin: This is not good for you. Why you don’t help us? (He then turns to Kovalev, who proceeds to chew and swallow his lit cigarette while keeping his eyes locked on suspect)
Suspect: I DIDN’T DO NOTHIN!!!
Golovkin: (Smile broadens while he slowly shakes his head) My friend, this not good. If you don’t help me, I can’t help you. (Kovalev has lifted his trench coat, revealing a large, blood-stained hack saw) This room camera, it work not well. It miss things. Bad things. My partner, he like pain. He bring pain for you.
Suspect: (Reveals everything while crying)
From Tim,
Q: How much would you pay to see Tom Brady in the ring, and which fighter would you choose to beat him to death?
Interesting. My hatred of Brady usually knows no bounds, since he has used the Bills as his own personal moist scrotal towelette for about 15 years. Sticking him into the ring would be interesting. The first guy who comes to mind is of course, Sergey Kovalev, but I don’t think I could even do that to Brady. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Funny thing is, Brady is like 6’5″, so do you go with a guy who’s even bigger, like Tyson Fury, or do you make it absolutely hilarious and get Chocolatito in there to bounce around the ring and hammer the shit out of him? Seeing as Brady is still probably sore from the mounting he received against the Broncos, I’ll go with Gennady Golovkin.
He would pound the living piss out of him, but at least he’d smile and help him up after it was over. They’d probably end up pals afterwords, and we could all use another pal. So really, I’d be doing Tommy a favor. You’re welcome, Tom.
From Random Angry Guy,
Q: You know Kovalev killed a guy, right?
Yes. I’m aware. Kovalev fought a guy named Roman Simakov, who lost consciousness after their 2011 fight was stopped and never regained it. It’s horrific, and this sport is full of god-awful things like that. We sometimes go into what I call “video game mode,” where there’s a tendency to forget that these are humans with families. And in no way do I think it’s okay for a guy to be okay with beating someone mercilessly. That’s some scary shit.
Thing is, I’m not sure Kovalev is really like that. He hasn’t talked much about the Simakov fight, but I don’t believe that he hasn’t talked about it because he doesn’t want to say how much he enjoyed it. Fighters are hyper-aware that shit like this can happen anytime they step in there and throw fists. It’s fun to root for your guy to win, but I don’t know anybody who’s rooting for a catastrophic injury to occur, nor do I want to.
I honestly believe that there is a serious language barrier here, and for a guy who might be a bit quiet and awkward in the public eye to begin with, having an extremely tenuous grasp on the English language is exacerbating the “psycho-Russian” vibe he gives off. Or, he really does like to beat everything to shit and we should all be very afraid.
From PJ,
Q: Adonis’ reaction, real or fake?
A lot of people seem to think that he feigned angry aggression with his “I’M THE CHAMP” thing. It reminded me a bit of that scene from the greatest movie ever made, Great White Hype, where James “The Grim Reaper” Roper has just waxed poor stupid Terry Conklin, and Marvin Shabazz (greatest name ever) jumps into the ring to knock him stiff.
Maybe it was contrived; it’s easy to get all pissed off and beg for a fight when there’s no chance of it happening. Still, Stevenson, after being called “Chickenson” and having a guy make chicken noises–even ones that made it clear that said guy had never heard a chicken before –had to save face. He couldn’t take that, not in his backyard. That was brutal.
And while Stevenson might want the fight (you could make an argument either way), it’s become clear that his manager/adviser Al Haymon does not. He’s Haymon’s big PBC star, and to stick him in with a guy like Kovalev, a guy who at this point seems likely to beat him, wouldn’t be good business, fans be damned.
Kovalev, for his part, simply gave Stevenson the finger and walked away. A good portion of the boxing world has done the same thing.
