Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Amateur career [ ] Kovalev started boxing in 1994 at age 11, and made his amateur debut in 1997 in the Russian Boxing Junior Championship, where he won the gold medal in the middleweight juniors division. One year later he competed with the seniors and reached the final, and a year after that, he won the final fight. For Team Russia, he competed in the European Championships. In 2004, Kovalev for the first time took part in the Russian Senior Championship, and in his first season, he reached the final and also won the golden medal in the team event. The next year was the most successful in his career as an amateur in winning two titles: the first as champion of Russia and the second as champion among servicemen. In the 2006 championship for servicemen, he won the silver, and a year later, he took bronze in the Russian Championship and gold in the World Military Games in India. In 2008, Kovalev took part in his final national competition and again made the final; after that, he decided to turn professional.

The latest Tweets from Nikita Kucherov (@86Kucherov). Official account of #86 for Tampa Bay Lightning. For corporate inquiries please contact Dan Milstein. Death of Roman Simakov. In his 2011 fight against Roman Simakov of Russia, Kovalev knocked down his opponent in the sixth round and the fight was stopped one round.

As he once admitted, he had to leave the national team because of the extremely tense competition between him and more successful boxers such as. He finished his amateur career with a record of 195-18. Main article: It was announced on June 16, 2016, that a contract had been signed between Kovalev and undefeated former super middleweight world champion (30-0, 15 KOs) to take place at the in on November 19, 2016. Both fighters remained undefeated through interim bouts. This fight marked Ward's first time fighting in Las Vegas.

Kovalev lost a closely contested controversial decision with the judges all scoring the fight 114-113 in favor of Ward. Stated after the fight, 'It was a classic hometown decision, Kovalev won the fight!' Gareth Davies, boxing correspondent gave the fight to Kovalev with 115-112, as did. Zadachi po administrativnomu pravu rk s otvetami.

Kovalev's promoter,, said, 'We got a great fight, which is what boxing needed. But we also got a bad decision, which is not what boxing needed.' Still, many boxing experts have applauded the decision. Noted the high degree of difficulty both fighters faced that night and doubted the prospect of a one-sided affair in the case of a rematch. Still, he concluded that Kovalev faded late in the fight. Promoter added that Kovalev lacked a sense of urgency after the halfway point. 's trainer,, noticed how Kovalev allowed Ward on the inside and as a result wore down.

For the fight, Kovalev received a minimum purse of $2 million and Ward's purse was a career-high $5 million. CompuBox stats showed that Kovalev landed 126 of 474 punches (27%); Ward landed 116 out of 337 thrown (34%). The fight reported to have done 160,000 buys on. A replay was shown on HBO prior to the - title fight, which averaged 834,000 viewers. The event produced a live gate of $3.3 million from 10,066 tickets sold, including complimentary tickets, the full attendance was announced as 13,310. The venue was set up to hold 14,227.