At the final press conference, Kovalev mentioned that he had made mistakes in the previous fight and had over-trained for his loss to Alvarez, and that he would fix all of that.
And that he did on Saturday night against Alvarez, the man who had knocked him out in the first fight.
Once again, Kovalev had to deal with the embarrasment of being the opponent, the same thing he had to do when he lost to a very controversial first fight against Andre Ward and then falling by KO in the second one.
After getting one of the vacant WBO Light Heavyweight belts back after Ward had retired, he got caught by Alvarez in his last fight and he was back to square one.
His mission continues as he said, which is to retain all the belts as he had done before, but his camp must have been very worried as to how he would perform, with all the controversy outside the ring.
With his new trainer, Buddy McGirt, a former world champion himself, he was definitely more focuses and on a mission. Kovalev practically ran toward Alvarez as the bell sounded for the first round and landed the first punch.
At the halfway point of the fight, it appeared to be identical to the first fight with Alvarez, except this time, Kovalev made no mistakes and went the full twelve rounds without getting caught.
As for Alvarez, he appeared to be be in defensive posture the entire fight, although he was landing some good punches of his own. But the punch count was clearly on Kovalev's side, a whopping 816 punches to Alvarez' 369.
But in the sixth round, Kovalev's corner might have been concerned when Alvarez landed a looping right hook that landed to the head of Kovalev and it looked like it might have done some damage, but Kovalev took it well and continued to fight.
Toward the end of the fight it appeared that Kovalev might punch himself out, but he was relentless in not letting Alvarez land first, and he finished very strong in the final round.
“We worked a lot on my jab," Kovalev said. "Right now, I am working with {trainer} Buddy {McGirt} the way I was when I was an amateur and "After this, I want unification fights."
At the end of the fight, Alvarez did not give any excuses for the loss, and gave Kovalev all the credit for the win.
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