By Keith Idec

FRISCO, Texas – Kathy Duva has plenty of reasons to believe in divine intervention, no matter what anyone else might think.

Boxing’s most prominent female promoter has survived the death of her husband, Dan, who was just 44 when he succumbed to a brain tumor in January 1996. Then she survived breast cancer a few years later. Then more obstacles in a male-dominated, dirty business than she conceivably could count thereafter.

The 65-year-old Duva would be the first to tell you that virtually everything was at stake Saturday night when Main Events’ franchise fighter, Sergey Kovalev, encountered Eleider Alvarez in their heavyweight championship rematch. Another knockout loss for the 35-year-old Kovalev would’ve been extremely damaging for her company.

She was nervous because, well, how else could she have felt about it?

It wasn’t until Alvarez entered the ring to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” that Duva finally felt comfortable with what was about to happen at the Dallas Cowboys’ practice facility.

“Thunderstruck,” for those that don’t know, was Arturo Gatti’s song, the anthem the late legend preferred to hear when he walked to the ring for so many of his unforgettable brawls.

Trainer Buddy McGirt and strength and conditioning coach Teddy Cruz stood in Kovalev’s corner for the time Saturday night. Those two men were largely responsible for resurrecting Gatti’s career, starting late in 2001.

Alvarez might not have even been aware of that connection, especially when you consider Gatti is beloved in his adopted hometown of Montreal, where Alvarez and his trainer, Marc Ramsey, reside. The Colombian-born boxer simply might’ve picked “Thunderstruck” because one of the lyrics states, “Went through to Texas, yeah Texas, and we had some fun.”

Regardless, as soon as Duva heard that song playing Saturday night, it resonated with her immediately.

“When I heard him getting into the ring to ‘Thunderstruck,’ ” Duva said, “I looked over at Buddy and I go, ‘Oh no, he doesn’t get to do that. Not with you and Teddy in this ring.’ I said, ‘That’s it. He’s done.’ I felt Arturo up there, like, ‘No, not with Buddy and Teddy. Not on my watch.’ ”

Nearly 10 years after his devastating death, Gatti remains one of Duva’s favorite fighters, like a missing family member in an industry where promoters and boxers too often part on bad business terms. She smiled wide when relaying that she thinks Gatti’s spirit somehow had something to do with Kovalev completely out-boxing Alvarez to regain his WBO light heavyweight title.

“It’s sweeter,” she said, “when no one thinks you can do it.”

Duva gave McGirt and Cruz all the credit for making Kovalev realize he had to train smarter, not harder, for this immediate rematch.

“Buddy and Teddy,” Duva said. “Don’t discount Teddy Cruz because, you know what? [Kovalev] ate breakfast and lunch [Friday] before the weigh-in. He did not dehydrate one ounce, where the other guy was dry two days before the weigh-in. This is a guy, like [manager] Egis [Klimas] said, in 10 years he’s never known him to eat before a weigh-in. And he ate twice [Friday], and he was a pound under.

“Teddy told me, and I’ve been talking to him all along, [matchmaker Jolene Mizzone has] been talking to him all along, Teddy told me about two weeks ago, ‘It’s all about the legs. Don’t worry about it. It’s all about the legs.’ You know, ‘These [biceps] are for show, these [legs] are for go.’ That’s all he worked on. Teddy said guys lifting weights, doing all this sh*t he was doing before, he was just wasting his time.”

Whatever you think of divine intervention, that’s the same approach McGirt and Cruz took to training the comparably stubborn Gatti once they were tasked with helping him overcome what was thought to be a definitive technical-knockout loss to Oscar De La Hoya in March 2001.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.