Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovalev Media Conference Call Transcript

BERNARD HOPKINS AND SERGEY KOVALEV MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL TRANSCRIPT Kelly Swanson Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We’re very excited about this wonderful unification bout in the light heavyweight division between Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovalev. Today on the phone we will have Bernard Hopkins, Sergey Kovalev, his manager, Egis Klimas, Oscar De La Hoya, President and Founder of Golden Boy Promotions and Kathy Duva, CEO of Main Events. We will begin the call with Sergey first, and when we’re done with his Q&A Bernard Hopkins will be joining us immediately following Sergey’s portion of the call. First to make the introductions and to get started I’m going to introduce Oscar De La Hoya, President and Founder of Golden Boy Promotions. Oscar De La Hoya Thanks very much, Kelly. I greatly appreciate it. We are getting close to what is probably the most anticipated event of this year, the main event, “Bernard Hopkins vs. Sergey Kovalev,” which will be a 12-round light heavyweight unification bout. The co-feature, we’re excited to announce is Sadam Ali vs. Luis Carlos Abregu, which will be a 10-round welterweight bout, and that event is being promoted by Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank taking place at Caesars Atlantic City. We are excited to be also once again working with Corona Extra, AT&T, Hortitsia Vodka and Mexico – Live it To Believe It. Tickets are still available but they are, as a lot of people here on this call can attest to it, going extremely, extremely well. Obviously, it’s a testament to the great card that we have put together. Now let me, without any further ado, introduce to you a co-promoter of this magnificent event to introduce to you Kovalev, is the CEO of Main Events, Kathy Duva. Kathy Duva I’m just so pleased to be involved in such an exciting fight. I don’t think I need to say anything to sell it, because it sells itself. It is the kind of fight that, sadly, doesn’t happen often enough, and we’re really pleased to be working with Oscar and Golden Boy and HBO and all the great sponsors involved in this fight, including our Russian sponsor, Hortitsia, to bring you such a fabulous fight. I’m doubly proud to be able to bring it to you in my home state of New Jersey. The people at Boardwalk Hall and the people from Atlantic City, the CRDA, and the Atlantic City Alliance, and most especially, save the best for last, Caesars Atlantic City and Ken Condon, who really should be the patron saint of boxing in New Jersey, particularly Atlantic City, where he has made it his mission to keep our sport alive there. Everything came together just the way you’d want it to be, and it’s almost to the point where you think it’s meant to be. As Oscar said, we keep an eye on that box office every day, it is moving steadily and it is picking up steam every single day, we are headed to a packed house full of people who are going to be going crazy. So, it’s the kind of thing that if you can be there you’re going to want to tell your grandkids about it, so show up. Having said that, I want to introduce to you the gentleman who I think should be the Manager of the Year in 2014 and ’15 and probably ’16. He has done an amazing job, kind of new to the boxing scene, but he has got so many terrific fighters, like Lomachenko, Gradovich and Sullivan Barrera who is also with Main Events, a few others, Lepikhin, Mikhaylenko, it is such a pleasure to work with him and the top fighter of his stable, as far as I’m concerned, someone who I think is going to lead Egis and Main Events to a whole new level in the sport. So I want to thank him for, as I do every day, for bringing Sergey Kovalev to my door, and I want to introduce Egis Klimas. Egis Klimas Thank you, Kathy. Hello to everybody. It is a great pleasure to participate in this conference call. I know this is going around the world. I just wanted to mention a couple things regarding how hard Sergey was working to get to this level, how hard he is still training, and how he is still dreaming about unifying the title. Of course it’s a very, very tough fight, it’s the toughest fight in his career and we all as a team are looking forward to it as well. I wanted to thank everybody else, I wanted to thank our promoter, Kathy Duva, she does a very, very good job for Sergey Kovalev. I wanted to thank Golden Boy for putting this together. I want to thank legendary fighter Bernard Hopkins for taking this fight, because he could fight so many easy guys but he chose the most dangerous guy in the division, and I give him a lot of respect for that. I want to thank HBO. I wanted to thank all the sponsors. I wanted to thank everybody who’s participating in this bout on November 8th. It will be very, very interesting, looking forward to meet you all in Atlantic City on November 8th. Thank you. K. Duva Thank you, Egis. Now it is my extreme pleasure to introduce to you the WBO Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, and today much more important than that a brand new father, the father of Aleksandr Kovalev, the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World and just a spectacular athlete who keeps asking for the toughest fight; don’t give me easy ones, put me in big ones, it is such a pleasure to work with a guy like this, but again I want to publicly congratulate him now and let everybody know that Aleksandr Kovalev’s father is on the phone, Sergey Kovalev. Sergey Kovalev Hello, everybody. Thank you so much, Kathy, for the congratulations. I’m very happy and very excited that I got my new name, “Daddy.” It was for me the greatest day in my life. I cried a little bit out of happiness, because it was yesterday, when I saw on Skype that the baby was born, maybe two minutes after it happened. Natalia had to do this by herself, so most of the adoration goes to her, and she is still healthy, the baby is still healthy, and I am very happy. This means for me everything right now, it is the most important thing in my life now and I felt it before in my head and also in my heart. And now I embrace this next big fight which I’m going to win and give this victory to my son, Aleksandr. Q If you go back in the earlier part of your career when you were fighting on untelevised shows and Egis and you were traveling around and trying to make something of your career, is this where you figured you would be, or, did you have no concept that this is where you would wind up, as one of the most significant fighters in the sport, fighting in a big fight like this and making a lot of money? S. Kovalev You never know what will be tomorrow, but if you believe in it, it can happen, if I trust and believe myself and you have a goal and you’re working to this goal, then yes, this can happen. It can happen and then you push more, then you do more, and it’s your dream to be getting close to you, closer and closer to you when you work as hard and push yourself. When we fought three, four years ago with Egis, and we were traveling all over the country in America and fighting anyone who was ready, I didn’t think that this fight would be possible. But I believed that I can to do it, and I tried to do it, and some very big thanks to my promoter, Kathy Duva and to Egis that they, from their conversations led me to sign a contract with the promoter, That is when my fight began. I’ll tell you why. I waited a long time at this level and waited for this fight, a huge fight. When I was a child I had a dream, when I watched TV, I watched it and I had a dream. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be there, and I will try to be there, and I’m here. Everything from your head and everything from your heart, if you want it, you can do it. Q Sergey, was there ever a time during that period where you doubted it, that it would happen, or there was never a moment where you thought, oh boy, this is not going to work out? S. Kovalev No, even right now I don’t think about that. It’s just the next step of my career. It’s not the finish of my career. It’s just the next step in my career. I’m not going to stop after this fight no matter the result, win or loss, it’s boxing and this is a sport, and if I win I will grow more experienced and if I lose I will get more experience. I will get to do more fights and interesting fights, but the next fight will be much more interesting because I will get more experience from my next huge fight.

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