According to ESPN, former WBA/IBF/WBO light heavyweight boxer, Russian "bone crusher" Sergey Kovalev (34-4-1, 29KO) has reached a match agreement with Chinese star Meng Fanlong (17-0, 10KO), and on March 12 the two will play a 185-pound agreed weight game in Los Angeles.
Kovalev's most recent game came in 2019, when he lost his last WBO gold belt by Mexican superstar Avarez KO. After that match, Kovalev said that he rushed to duel with Avarez for the $8 million appearance fee, and even did not fully prepare, which led to the tragic KO.
But Kovalev was one of the most threatening boxers in boxing at his heyday, and he is also considered the best light heavyweight boxer in the world. On November 9, 2014, Kovalev uncontroversially defeated Bernard Hopkins to become the IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight boxer, and has successfully defended his title many times since then.
And Kovalev also had another game that also grieved the entire professional boxing community. In December 2011, Kovalev won a match against his compatriot Roman Simakov, but at the same time his opponent was also seriously injured and died after three days in a coma.
However, in 2016 and 2017, he lost to the other side twice in the battle with Andre Ward, one of which was very controversial, and the second battle was directly thrown from the altar by Ward TKO.
Meng Fanlong, a 33-year-old Chinese athlete who competed at the 2012 London Olympics, was the disciple of Zhang Xiaoping, the 2008 Beijing Olympic champion. He has also won several national championships, winning the 81 kg championship of the first World Martial Arts Association boxing competition in 2010, the runner-up of the 81 kg class of the 26th Asian Boxing Championships in 2011, and starting his professional boxing career in 2014, with a current professional record of 17 wins and 10 KO.
In March 2020, Meng Fanlong became a mandatory challenger for WBC/IBF light heavyweight world boxing champion Artur Betebiyev with a professional record of 16 total victories, but the match was repeatedly postponed due to the impact of the epidemic, and it was forced to be cancelled.
Later, the war was rearranged on September 25 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Beitbiyev's hometown, but due to a series of problems such as visas, Meng Fanlong missed the time until he was finally replaced by someone else. During this time, because of the long period of non-playing, Meng Fanlong even lost the IBF's ranking in the world's top 15. Last October, Meng Fanlong defeated Panamanian boxer Isariel Dafos in 10 rounds and reappeared in the field of vision.
Although Kovalev has passed the peak, he is still a dangerous opponent, and even this is one of the strongest opponents that Chinese professional boxers have ever faced, and I hope that Meng Fanlong can let go and bring us a wonderful performance.