Kovalev vs Chilemba Boxing Odds – HBO Boxing will be in Ekaterinberg, Russia this coming Monday, July 11th with a World Title fight in the light heavyweight division between Sergey Kovalev (29-0-1) and Isaac Chilemba (24-3-2).
Kovalev is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world today, as he is in the top 5 of almost every list out there. The respected TBRB.org Boxing Rankings list him as the number two p4p guy right now. For Kovalev, this is a tune-up fight as he sets his sight on a November showdown with Andre Ward. Kovalev made short work of Jean Pascal in a rematch this past January, and he lobbied for a fight back in Russia, where he has not fought in nearly five years. Chilemba is not on his level and he knows it, and he is looking at socking away a payday and keeping ring fitness high with very little risk.
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Chilemba is a good fighter who has been on the international scene for the last five years after starting his career in his native South Africa. He has gone 24 rounds with Tony Bellew, going 0-1-1 in that pair of fights. His other draw is against Thomas Oosthuizen and he took a loss in his last outing to undefeated Eleider Alvarez. He does not bring a lot of KO power to his fights and he has not been able to break through and defeat any named fighters in the chances he has gotten. Thinking he has any type of chance to beat Kovalev, who is the cream of the crop at 175 lbs, is a stretch.
Th match with Ward is set for the T-Mobile Arena on November 19th. Ward (29-0) is also on the schedule to fight alxander Brand (25-1) of Colombia on Augist 6th in what will be a tune-up with a huge line similar to this fight for Kovalev. HBO will also be airing that fight.
Both fighters and HBO deserve credit. Setting up a big fight and allowing the fighters to compete before it goes down is an unusual move. The careful selection of opponents, which has happened in both cases, mitigates some of the risks but surprises happen in boxing. At the end of the day Chilemba and later, Brand are going to want to rain on the whole parade.
Kovalev vs Chilemba Boxing Odds
The only reason this fight is at the sports book is because Kovalev has worked his way into being one of the biggest names in Boxing, and it is on HBO in the United States. There are other regional fights on the card in Russia that could appear at the sports books, but with all the problems the country is facing with regards to the abuse of PEDs the books may avoid putting up more lines from this card.
Russia is banned from the 2016 Olympics for abuse in other sports, and heavyweight Lukas Browne of Australia has a July 21st court date where allegations that his food was tampered with fighting in Russia this past March led to his positive drug test.
Below is the line for the match as it stands at the sports books today.
Light Heavyweight 12 rounds –
Isaac Chilemba +4000
Sergey Kovalev -10000
Check out The Boxing Channel’s Look Back at two historic fights from July 4th.
