By Francisco Salazar, photos by Craig Bennett

The middleweight bout between Curtis Stevens and James De La Rosa, which had already been scheduled to take place on Nov. 19, was officially added to the HBO pay-per-view broadcast, Main Events and Roc Nation officially announced last week.

The 10 round bout will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Headlining the broadcast will be the light heavyweight showdown between Sergey Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) and Andre Ward (30-0, 15 KOs).

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Stevens (28-5, 21 KOs) fought earlier this year on the Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez-Amir Khan  fight card on May 7, also at the T-Mobile Arena. It was the first fight in over a year and a half for the middleweight contender from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

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"I know it is Kovalev-Ward but now it is Kovalev-Ward-Stevens,” said Stevens, who is ranked amongst the top 10 by the WBC and IBF. “Time to show out!"

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"After we announced Curtis would be fighting on the untelevised portion of the Kovalev-Ward PPV card, we heard from a lot of fans asking that the fight be moved to TV so they could see Curtis,” said Main Events CEO Kathy Duva. “What the fans want, the fans get."

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De La Rosa (23-4, 13 KOs) has lost three of his last five bouts. His most notable win took place in September of 2014, when he defeated Alfredo Angulo by decision.

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In his last bout on May 7, De La Rosa lost a one-sided 10 round decision to unbeaten Jason Quigley.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper, Boxingscene.com, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing  

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