Calm and Confident, Sergey Kovalev Ready for Whatever Bernard Hopkins Throws

Sergey Kovalev is a monster of near-mythical proportions inside a boxing ring, but he’s a cool customer outside of it, quietly confident and reserved heading into the biggest fight of his professional career.

The undefeated Russian power puncher will face ageless wonder Bernard Hopkins in a light heavyweight unification showdown on Nov. 8 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Kovalev is fully aware of Hopkins’ reputation, and he respects his accomplishments, but once the fighting starts, he has a not-so-subtle warning for his foe.

“I don’t have any strategy for this fight. I’m just going into the ring and fight like a street fight,” Kovalev told an international media conference call on Tuesday afternoon.

“Yes, I’m going to kick his ass, because he’s my opponent. Any of my opponents want to beat me. If I’m not going to beat him, he’s going to beat me.”

That’s about as close to in-your-face as you’ll get from the 31-year-old WBO light heavyweight champion.

He later clarified that he didn’t mean the type of street fight where you kick, elbow and knee your foe—although against Hopkins that could help—but that you never know what each individual bout will bring, and you need to be able to adapt on the fly.

It’s just not his style to trash talk or denigrate his foe or any of the other so-called marketable characteristics you find in many other top-flight fighters of this era.

And that comes from being a fighter who had to struggle every inch of the way to get here.

From being a fighter, and a person, who understands and respects the journey.

It’s something that’s ingrained in everything Kovalev says and everything he does.

“You never know what there will be tomorrow but if you believe in it, it can happen. You’ve trusted and believed in yourself and you have a goal and yes, this can happen. You push more and you do more and your dream can become fulfilled if you believe in your heart and you push yourself. Four years ago, we were going all over the country and were fighting everyone who was available,” Kovalev said.

“At the time, you think that getting a fight like this was impossible. But I believed and I came to do it and I tried to do it. I’ve waited a long time to get to this level for this fight and it’s a big fight. When I was a child, I had the dream. I would watch television and I had a dream. I wanted to be there and I’m here. If you want it, you can do it.”

Kovalev is living the dream at this point.

His wife Natalia recently gave birth to the couple’s first child, a son named Aleksandr, and now he finds himself just weeks away from one of the most anticipated fights on the 2014 calendar.

And it’s a fight nobody expected he’d ever get.

Hopkins, the 49-year-old wonder, was widely expected to remain on Showtime and unify belts with WBC champion Adonis Stevenson.

Stevenson eschewed his own showdown with Kovalev for a presumably safer challenge of Hopkins, but he lost out and now finds himself without a significant fight on the horizon.

And it’s Kovalev who can laugh his way to the bank and the ring, even though he views this fight as a stop along the path and not its destination.

“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, with any result, win or loss,” he said.

So how does he make sure it’s a W and not an L that will hang on his resume after Nov. 8?

“The most important thing for me is to just keep going and to stay motivated. To stay disciplined and to keep working on some special combinations.”

"John [David Jackson, Kovalev’s trainer] says there is nothing dangerous from Hopkins because Hopkins is already old. We’ll just keep going and keep doing what we’ve been doing for every other fighter.”

Scott Heavey/Getty Images

Hopkins may be old, at least by boxing standards, but he’s made a career out of embarrassing younger, stronger fighters, each of whom was supposed to be just too much for him.

Felix Trinidad.

Kelly Pavlik.

Antonio Tarver.

Jean Pascal.

Hopkins has beaten a higher class of opponent post-40 than many fighters do in their entire career, and anyone who thinks that he can’t win this fight is out of their mind.

He’s earned the benefit of the doubt, and the Kovalev camp, led by promoter Kathy Duva, doesn’t want to hear anything about the age of the future Hall of Famer.

“I saw a poll, and basically the press is about 50-50 on this fight. So when this is over, I don’t want to hear about how old Bernard Hopkins is. No matter what the outcome. This is a great fight between two fighters, it’s competitive, it’s exciting,” Duva, who is Kovalev’s fiercest advocate as head of Main Events, said.

“Bernard has never been stopped. Sergey has knocked out just about everyone he’s fought. It’s a tremendous, compelling fight. I’m going to be very unhappy if the press decides that when it’s over they’re going to start raising the fact that Bernard is 50 years old, because they aren’t raising it now.”

Rob Carr/Getty Images

And that’s what makes this fight so compelling.

It could literally go either way.

It’s the massive punching power of Kovalev against the guile and boxing mastery of Hopkins.

Something has got to give, and it will on Nov. 8.

Kovalev, for his part, isn’t worried about what will come on that night. He’s showing up to win, but he understands anything can happen in the fight game.

“I’m going to get my victory, at any cost. If I need to fight I’m going to fight, if I need to box, I’m going to box. This is fight,” he said.

“This is boxing. And everything in boxing can happen from one punch, from any punch. This is not swimming. This is not bicycle. This is not running. This is boxing.”

Kevin McRae is a featured boxing columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.