The triumphant return of Kovalev! Sergei did not notice the resistance of the invincible boxer

Russian boxer Sergei Kovalev is certainly one of the brightest light heavyweights in history. But the peak of the career of the famous athlete, obviously, was left behind. Many fans have already begun to doubt that the Crusher will return to the ring at all.

But the Russian still resumed his career, and his return turned out to be as bright as possible. Kovalev decided to fight in a new weight category, and even against an opponent with zero defeats in the asset – and ended the fight with a powerful triumph.

Judges with a big stretch gave the opponent only a couple of rounds!

Invincible Bulgarian

Sergey Kovalev returned to the ring after a long downtime. The last time a Russian entered the ring was in 2019. Then his opponent was Saul Alvarez, who sent the Russian boxer into a hard knockout with several powerful blows. After that, there was an unsuccessful attempt to return in January 2021, but due to doping discovered in the Crusher, the fight with Bektemir Melikuziev was canceled.

Coming back after such a long break is really hard. Kovalev did not even begin to drive the mass to the usual light heavyweight category. He decided to compete in the first heavyweight division.

To return to the ring, Sergei picked up an extremely difficult opponent. Bulgarian Tervel Pulev (16-0) has never lost in his professional career. But if you dig deeper, you can understand that the opponent was quite tough for the Russian. Tervel has 16 fights behind him, but there were no top class rivals in his track record yet.

The boxer from Bulgaria switched to professionals relatively recently, in 2016. But you need to understand that Pulev is no longer young. He boxed amateurs for a long time and achieved some success, but now Tervel is already 40. He is even older than Kovalev, and he has not yet had serious titles.

I took mine in class

The Bulgarian started the fight with a serious pressure. He immediately wanted to take his duel against a smaller opponent, but Sergey adequately responded to Pulev’s attacks. In the first two rounds, the opponents looked about the same, but by the third round, the forces began to leave the Bulgarian fighter. The Crusher remained fresh. His left jab began to pass unhindered past Tervel’s gloves and hit right in the head.

The longer the fight lasted, the less strength the Bulgarian athlete had. Sergei, on the other hand, boxed smartly, surpassing his opponent in skill and clearly saving his strength for the ending. The serious advantage of the Russian remained until the fifth round. By this time, Kovalev also began to run out of steam. Boxers were somewhat trimmed, but the initiative still came from our athlete. He confidently controlled the center of the ring, and his jab regularly hit the target. From one of these blows, Tervel almost lost his mouthguard.

In the last rounds of this fight, Pulev began to openly aim, hoping to get a lucky punch from a swoop. He practically stopped delivering regular blows from the stand, but Sergey saw everything – and competently parried them. Dirt was added to the actions of the Bulgarian. At the end of the seventh round, he apparently began to forget that he was in the boxing ring, and not in the MMA octagon, and hit our boxer with his elbow in the head. It took Kovalev a few seconds to recover, after which the fight continued.

Before the tenth round, both corners understood how the fight would end if the Bulgarian did not knock out Sergei. Pulev was pumped up as best they could for the decisive stretch so that he would not give up.

“He’s small, go and smash him,” Tervel’s coach shouted during the break between rounds.

But it did not help. Although Sergei was very tired, he perfectly saw the blows of the opponent, whose strength was also running out. As a result, the fight ended with the final gong.

Win by a huge margin

After a short pause for summing up, entertainer Michael Buffer announced the results. A confident victory by unanimous decision was won by Russian boxer Sergei Kovalev. All three referees gave the win to the Crusher with a big advantage: 98:92; 97:93; 98:92.

The score in the referee cards is also supported by statistics. During this ten-round fight, the Russian significantly outperformed his opponent both in the total number of strikes (500:309) and in accurate hits (103:63). Even the powerful blows that the Bulgarian hoped for in the end, Kovalev delivered more (150:118).

The result of the duel was also easily traced by the faces of the opponents. Kovalev did not have any hematomas or cuts. It seems that Tervel never really hit our boxer on the head. Pulev’s face was noticeably swollen.

After the announcement of the winner, a joyful Kovalev approached the commentators and spoke about his ambitious plans for the future.

– A long break in my career made my return a little difficult, but I returned. Now I have to keep getting in shape. Ahead of a week’s rest, and then I will continue training. I’m looking forward to the next fight. Of course, I was worried about the outcome of this fight, because I missed a lot of time. My body suffered from such a long downtime and added 10 pounds. I want to fight like this every three or four months. I think the next fight will not be much higher level. Give me one more fight and I’ll be ready,” the boxer said.