By Steve Kim
On Tuesday afternoon at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy in Oxnard, California, an open media workout was held for IBF, WBO and WBA light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (30-0-1, 26KOs), who faces Andre Ward (30-0, 15KOs) on November 19th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Kovalev is managed by Egis Klimas and on this day another one of his clients stopped by the gym, WBO cruiserweight king Oleksandr Usyk.
Klimas says of Usyk's immediate future - "We are looking at a fight here in the United States, sometime in December. We're looking at different opportunities and hopefully we're going to see him in the ring in December."
Usky won the title on September 17th by out-pointing Krzysztof Glowaki over 12 rounds in Poland in what was just his tenth pro fight.
There are reports in Ukraine that Usyk may land on the Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Smith Jr. card on December 17th at The Forum in Los Angeles.
So can Usky - a 2008 Olympic gold medalist for Ukraine - bring some cruiserweight heat to the States?
"We would like to do what we did with Kovalev when he came here,"explained Klimas. "I asked [Kovalev when he came here] maybe you want to move down in the weight class and he looked at me and said, 'Why?' I said,' Light heavyweight division is dead.' He said, 'Well, let me stay at 175 and I'll light up that division.'
"Look at what he is and now 175 is booming. So we would like to do something at cruiserweight."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com