The Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight was a draw, the way I see it. But after losing the decision by just 1 point, Kovalev, cried foul. “I’ll beat Ward’s ass in the rematch,” he vowed.
After it was over, most commentators, felt that Kovalev had won, and since the fight had been held in Las Vegas, the judges were biased for their fellow American. I say forget the bias be it Russian bias for the Russian fighter had this fight been held in Russia or for the American. Make me the judge. I always thought that Ward would win, but sentimentally I favored the Russian.
So why would I root for Kovalev over Ward?
I like both men, and I really didn’t want either man to lose. I’m not anti black and I’m not anti Russian. I live here in Thailand in a 62 unit condo where I’m the chairmen over a 5 man committee that runs our building. 5 of them have Russian owners. About one month before the Andre Ward, Sergei Kovalev fight, while I was drinking at our favorite beach restaurant with several of my Russian friends, I asked the Russians which fighter they wanted to win.
Click here to watch Kovalev vs Ward the entire fight
After a few Guiness Stouts I told the Russians what my brain and my heart were telling me. “I like both men,” I told the Russians and I hate to see either one lose because both of them deserve to win. But I prefer Kovalev’s style. Andre Ward is boring by comparison. Kovalev comes right at his opponent. His record is 30-0-1 with 27 of his 30 wins by knockout. “But I believe Andre Ward will win and when he does, I will really be sad.”
After the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight was over, I read that
Kovalev had finally proved that he was an excellent boxer.
But I knew that already after watching a number of Kovalev’s fights on you tube. I had also learned from watching his fights on you tube that Kovalev was very smart. I also enjoyed listening to Kovalev being interviewed on you tube finding him to be honest, to the point and very incisive. But as fast as he is, ring savvy, and his commanding power, I just didn’t think he would win against Ward, who I believed was slightly faster and nearly incapable of making mistakes.
I expected Ward to win by decision. And although Ward is not known for his knockout ability I would not have been surprised if Ward knocked Kovalev out. What I didn’t expect was for the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight to be so close.
Living in Pattaya, Thailand, I couldn’t find a way to actually watch the fight on television.
I would gladly have paid the Sixty dollar pay per view that HBO was charging. But I was not a subscriber to HBO. I couldn’t find any bars advertising the fight. And I got the date wrong. Thinking that the fight was on November 27th, I’d purposely avoid news coverage of the fight until a couple days after the fight. That way I could view it on you tube without knowing the final outcome.
But suppose that Kovalev or Ward had injured himself in training and the fight had been postponed. I had to know. So I googled Andre Ward vs Sergei Kovalev. The first results I saw had Kovalev defeating Ward. Not by knockout but by decision. This I found to be odd because I even though I felt Kovalev was underrated as a boxer, I felt there was no way Kovalev could win a decision over Andre Ward who was an even better boxer.
I went directly to the fight on you tube.
When Kovalev floored Ward in the 2nd round I believed that there would be no way that Ward could survive past the 4th round. But he did, and the fight went to the 5th, then the 6th round. Then the 7th and the 8th. By this time I truly felt that Kovalev had established beyond any doubt that he was Andre Ward’s master. But Ward was hanging in there. For the first few rounds Kovalev dominated the fight. But by the time the fight had gone past the sixth round I could not see either fighter dominating the other.
It was proving to be a good fight after all. By the middle of the fight Kovalev was well ahead in points but I could also see that Ward was slowly closing the gap. In the closing rounds it also seemed to me that Kovalev was weakening whereas Ward was getting stronger and landing far more punches.
But remember. I already knew that Kovalev had won the fight. So I now imagined myself as the only judge. Okay, Kovalev is the champion while Ward’s the challenger. I had learned from my study of boxing that a challenger had to clearly take the title away from the champion before he could be crowned as the new champion. This meant by knockout, tko or by demonstrating convincingly that he had clearly dominated the fight.
Certainly Ward could not be awarded the decision by proving himself to be dominant.
But neither could Kovalev had Ward been the champion and Kovalev were the challenger. Based on this criteria neither man would have dethroned the champion. In the end the two men had proven to be an even match.
Then another idea crossed my mind. Back in the old days of boxing, in the bare knuckle days of John L. Sullivan, fights often went well past the 20th round. And it was the 26th round of a scheduled 45 round fight that Jack Johnson finally lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in the hot Cuban sun. Had the fight gone just 12 or 15 rounds, Johnson would have probably kept the championship belt by decision. But by the 20th round he was showing signs of past his prime tiring.
As Ward was steadily closing the point gap, there was little doubt that he’d win the decision if the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight were to go a full 15 rounds instead of the scheduled 12 rounds. Kovalev could no longer match Ward’s speed. He was also losing the ability to connect with his punches. I had also noticed that Ward had snapped Kovalev’s head back several times in the latter rounds. If the fight were to go on long enough, Ward would clearly be the dominant fighter by a mile.
The way I see it,
the decision in the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight could have gone either way.
But to contend that Kovalev had been robbed is utter fallacy. If there is to be a rematch, I’ll be betting on Ward.