by David P. Greisman

Kathy Duva of Main Events says she wasn’t nervous about her fighter, Sergey Kovalev, going in against Bernard Hopkins on Saturday night — and that she even expected the dominant performance that Kovalev put forth en route to a shutout unanimous decision.

“And I’m not taking anything away from Bernard,” Duva said afterward. “I know as I read the comments, everybody talking about why they were picking Bernard, I recognized that they were wrong, that Sergey can box, that Sergey can go 12 rounds, that the guy who was going to go into deep waters was going to be the 49-year-old man, not the young one. And he did.”

“I never had any doubt at all that this was the right fight for Sergey,” she added. “The same way we always felt chasing Mike Tyson with Evander Holyfield. I just believed, and I’m happy I was right.”

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