By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Sergey Kovalev couldn’t resist.

If he was drinking alcohol as much as former John David Jackson claims during their time together, Kovalev joked that it was working for him throughout his light heavyweight championship reign. Otherwise, a laughing Kovalev said early Sunday morning, he wouldn’t have remained a champion for three years.

“Listen, we drank together like a few times,” Kovalev said during a press conference following his second-round technical knockout win against Vyacheslav Shabranskyy on Saturday night in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. “It was like a couple times when I drank a couple beers, a couple bottles of beers [on a] Sunday evening. And when I like made a barbeque, I brought him like four bottles of beer and offered [some] to him. And John like agreed, like OK. And this is nothing, you know? And like he say right now I drank every day. Believe me, OK, if I was drunk every day [for] like three years, I was champion. I was a drunk champion three years. It’s good for me, you know?”

Kovalev’s comments came in response to a question about Jackson’s continuous claims that Kovalev’s lifestyle hindered his preparation for fights and ultimately cost him during his back-to-back losses to Andre Ward. Jackson and Kovalev (31-2-1, 27 KOs) parted ways after the Russian knockout artist’s eighth-round technical knockout loss to Ward (32-0, 16 KOs) in their rematch June 17 in Las Vegas.

Since then, Jackson has been very critical of both Kovalev’s destructive habits outside of the ring and his unwillingness to listen to him. The 34-year-old Kovalev has countered Jackson’s claims by stating that his former trainer spent more time on his phone than training him.

The two-time WBO 175-pound champion also made sure to mention that the switch to his new trainer, Uzbekistan’s Abror Tursunpulatov, was instrumental in his impressive performance against Shabranskyy.

“The most important thing was a new coach,” said Kovalev, who knocked down Shabranskyy three times to win the WBO title again. “I already said that I’m a passenger in this training camp. He’s the driver. What he said to me, I do this and try to grow up [as] a boxer and be better because I understand what he wants from me. And his tactics and his plan and his workouts are interesting. And he doesn’t give me overtraining. He’s always looking to stop me.

“Without him, with John, I did what I did from my amateur experience. John never like said – he wasn’t like a coach in my training camp. I tried to say it before, but I didn’t because he was in my car, like a passenger. I couldn’t say like, ‘John, [get] out from my car,’ because I didn’t have another [trainer] who can be with me. I could put somebody from Russia, but it was like a problem with visas and other things. But right now, I’m happy everything happened like it happened. I’m very happy that the changes are much better [for] my skills, for my future career.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.