Former mild heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev is backing his newbie rival, Artur Beterbiev, within the necessary combat with Anthony Yarde.
Again in 2019, Kovalev made a compulsory protection of the WBO title towards Yarde in Russia.
Within the second half of the combat, Yarde had Kovalev in deep trouble and gave the impression to be on the verge of getting knocked out. Kovalev was capable of survive and finally stopped an exhausted Yarde within the championship rounds.
On Saturday evening in London, Yarde will get his second crack at gold when he challenges Beterbiev for the IBF, WBO, WBC mild heavyweight titles.
Kovalev, who now competes at cruiserweight, explains that he was weight drained for the combat and nonetheless managed to beat Yarde’s rally and cease him.
Beterbiev is an incredible favourite within the combat, with Yarde being tabbed to have a puncher’s likelihood at greatest.
Kovalev doesn’t anticipate the combat to enter the second half – along with his prediction that Beterbiev will safe a stoppage within the first six rounds of the bout.
“I feel it’s going to be an attention-grabbing combat, however for my part, Artur will smash him. I used to be in bother once I fought Anthony Yarde. I used to be in bother in spherical quantity seven or eight as a result of I used to be drained of my vitality by dropping pounds. I misplaced greater than 15 kilos for this combat. He couldn’t cease me,” Kovalev mentioned to Ring IQ.
“What I feel so, Artur will end him in the midst of the combat. It’s boxing. Not later than six. I feel so, 5, six. They’re each huge, robust & good. Subsequently, it’s an attention-grabbing combat, however I feel so, Beterbiev will smash him earlier than the center of the combat.”