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Following Eleider Alvarez’s seventh-round KO of Sergey Kovalev in August, the two will meet in an anticipated rematch Saturday night in Frisco, Texas.
The undercard starts at 7 p.m. ET, and the main card starts at midnight ET. While they won’t be on regular cable TV anywhere in the United States, you can watch a live stream of Alvarez vs Kovalev and all the undercard fights on your computer, phone, or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage to dozens of sporting events, including boxing, every week.
You can start a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of all the fights on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Alvarez vs Kovalev 2 Preview
When Kovalev put his WBO light heavyweight title on the line against Alvarez back in August, not many gave the challenger a chance. Kovalev, long one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, had won two in a row since his defeats to Andre Ward, while Alvarez–though undefeated–had never faced someone of Kovalev’s quality and ended up taking the fight on short notice. “Krusher” was considered a significant favorite.
For a while, everything seemed to be going according to plan for Kovalev, who was ahead on all three scorecards heading into the seventh round. But Alvarez completely flipped the script in that round, knocking down the champ three times to secure the knockout victory and his first world title belt.
Regarded as the underdog this time around, Kovalev promises to avoid his mishaps from the first fight.
“I made a mistake last time, but this time I will fix it. This Saturday, I will fix this situation and be on top again,” the 35-year-old said. “My goal is to collect all four belts, but I dropped this belt on my way to my huge goal. After [the loss], a lot of people thought I should stop my boxing career. No, that’s not in my character to stop my career by losing. When I win, I will think, stop or not to stop? But when I lose, it was 100 percent no.”
However, Alvarez, who is now 24-0-0 and quickly flying up the light heavyweight rankings, is ready to prove that result wasn’t a fluke.
“I believe that’s a lot of excuses he’s making,” he said. “When you lose, you have a lot of excuses. I had a great game plan with my team. If he says that was an accident, well, then he needs to get ready for another accident.”
In the night’s co-main event, 21-year-old lightweight Teofimo Lopez (11-0, 9 KOs), who competed in the 2016 Olympics and is now considered one of the top prospects in the world, will take on former world title challenger Diego Magdaleno in the former’s biggest fight to date.