Kathy Duva commented on Sullivan Barrera's choice to fight against Dmitry Bivol instead of meeting Sergey Kovalev for a bigger purse. The Cuban had the opportunity to choose which of the champions to fight on March 3, and as a result he chose Bivol.
“He was offered more money to fight Sergey than he was to fight Bivol, but it was not as much as he thought he should get. So I guess he felt that this was the better course. He clearly is very confident he’s gonna win the fight [against Bivol], so if he wins it, it was a great decision. I respect his decision and his management’s decision.”
Duva confirmed that Barrera was offered between $300,000 and $400,000 to challenge Kovalev on March 3.
“Their feeling is that this is a very winnable fight for [Barrera],” Duva said, “and that they would be in a stronger position to bargain when the time came to make a unification fight with Sergey, rather than a voluntary [title defense]. In a unification fight, I’m not in as strong a position to ask for things like options. This is the decision they made. We’ll see how it turns out. In the meantime, we’ve got a very interesting fight between him and Bivol. A very competitive fight, a very interesting fight, certainly on paper.”
