Sergey Kovalev Won His Cruiserweight Debut Saturday

Former unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev made his debut Saturday night at Cruiserweight and won an easy decision in the Triller Fight Club main event in Inglewood, California. The now 39 year-old known as “Krusher” easily outboxed and out pointed Tervel Pulev in a 10 -round victory.

The scores read 98-92 on two cards and 97-93 on the third,

The Krusher is back! 😤@KrusherKovalev defeats Pulev in his cruiserweight debut 🔥🥊#TrillerVerz5 pic.twitter.com/VM6vMnYUuX

— Triller Fight Club (@trillerfight) May 15, 2022

It was the first bout for Kovalev, who once held the IBF/WBA/WBO versions of the light heavyweight world title, since he was knocked out by Canelo Alvarez in November of 2019.

Kovalev, now 35-4-1, 29 KOs, had talked in advance about of the difficulties previously of still making light heavyweight and how much more comfortable he felt now fighting a Cruiserweight and weighed in on Friday at 196.5 lb. He dominated the bout with his jab and his experience to get the win over the 39 year old Pulev. Pulev, who’s older brother Kubrat fought on the undercard Saturday night, is a former Bulgarian Olympian and had been unbeaten as a professional.

Neither fighter was in serious trouble and there were no knockdowns, but Kovalev clearly won.

“After a long rest, it was a little harder than usual,” Kovalev said to Triller in the ring. “But I’m back. I’m okay. I’m gonna keep shape after this fight. Rest one week and then be back in the boxing gym. Next fight will be much more… I promise you.”

“I worried about how I was going to be in this fight,” Kovalev continued. “Pro boxing at a high level. More than one year, this is very big rest. My body don’t like this. I want to fight every three, four months.”

As mentioned the older Pulev, now 41, who has lost heavyweight title challenges to Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko previously, defeated American Jerry Forest by wide decision in the co- feature about.

Pulev, now 29-2, 14 KOs, was much more active scoring with combinations and was given the nod 99-91 twice and 92-92.

One other noteworthy fight on the Triller card at The Forum in Inglewood, California, saw Evan Holyfield, the son of the former undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, kayoed with one punch by little known Jurmain McDonald in their jr. middleweight bout.

McDonald landed a thunderous right cross to the side of the head of Holyfield in round two and he fell face first unable to get up. He suffers his first loss to drop to 9-1 in his career.