Al Haymon was one of the named parties involved in the Main Events lawsuit and there is no doubt whatsoever that he personally would have benefited greatly from Hopkins removing any perceived damages by agreeing to fight Sergey Kovalev instead of Adonis Stevenson.
Kathy Duva’s lawsuit claimed that Al Haymon was working to “wrest control” of Golden Boy, as well as operating as a manager and promoter in violation of the federal Muhammad Ali Act.
In fact, Bernard Hopkins also benefitted from forcing Main Events to drop the same lawsuit, because he is a partner and a shareholder in Golden Boy Promotions, which were also one of the named parties.
Put it this way, if it wasn’t Bernard Hopkins’ main agenda to face Sergey Kovalev in order to force Main Events to drop their lawsuit (even though he blatantly and repeatedly takes credit for it in multiple videos), then perhaps Al Haymon was procrastinating on purpose during the Stevenson negotiation process to compel him to do so, because he knew that the veteran wouldn’t be dumb enough to vacate his title and take a small payday against some other anonymous fighter.
Adonis Stevenson, Al Haymon, Richard Schaefer, Yvon Michel, Groupe Yvon Michel, Golden Boy Promotions and Showtime were all the named parties in the lawsuit that was filed and subsequently dropped by Main Events, which alleged breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, tortious interference and interference with prospective economic advantage.
Every single one of these parties, including Bernard Hopkins (by proxy of being a GBP shareholder), would have gained from ‘The Alien’ fighting Sergey Kovalev.
Therefore, I doubt that there was actually any real genuine attempt to negotiate a bout between Hopkins and Stevenson… and I don’t know if this political manoeuvring was orchestrated solely by Haymon or Hopkins... or if they were acting in collusion.