Aesthetic appeal means very little in boxing. Some guys look good while winning and some guys don't. And it can vary from fight to fight and opponent to opponent. Look man, when a fighter is walking away from you with precision and fighting backwards the entire fight you can look awkward. You don't know where he's going, it's hard to set a good pace, he won't engage and open up. The drawback to a fighter retreating is they need to establish some baseline of a workrate to win the rounds. You can't just walk backwards and drop in jabs to win a decision unless you're defensive skills are among the GOAT. Not everybody is Floyd Mayweather and Willie Pep. So naturally, Kovalev won nearly every round. I had it 10 rounds to 2 for Kovalev. Make no mistake if Ward decides to simply retreat the whole fight because of Kovalev's power then it will be extremely difficult for him to generate the workrate needed to win points. Because there comes a time when you have to land a punch to win the fight. Sure you can make Kovalev look discombobulated and out of sorts for most of the fight, but that won't get you the decision. If he's walking forward, landing the harder punches and you're retreating with a low workrate then you're going to get outworked. It's just that simple. Making Kovalev look sloppy by retreating and giving him little openings because you won't throw any punches may make him look unappealing to the eye. But he'll just take the rounds if you do that.
Why does this post come across so... defensive? It's like you are trying to rationalize your own opinion or desperately trying to sway others' for some reason.
Why do you always come across as you snarky and smarmy Nonito? It sounds like you're the one having doubts here and trying to mask it with your chiding sense of superiority you're attempting to project.
I was impressed by his composure. Chilemba was a hard target and landed his jab well and snapped his head back with a hook and he kept coming never seeming discouraged and eventually he took over and worked chilemba over I saw posts on here hours ago and expected this to be close and Chilemba to really push him. Chilemba was difficult but he won what, 3 rounds. Kovalev nearly had him in 7,8 and 12. I thought Kovalevs straight right to the body and power jab coming through after a straight right were very effective. He even had his hands down at times avoiding the jab with some head movement I took positives out if this, he needs rounds and chilemba resembles Ward and he needed a fight to get a preview
Ward gone have that boy head flying back with his jab. That fight gonna look kinda like trinidad vs bhop watch
Haven't seen the fight, maybe kovalev just had an off night? Maybe it's a stylistic issue and a sign of things to come?
Chilemba did better than expected. Some people gave undeserved rounds to him out of emotion. He won 3 maybe 4 rounds at best. Kovalev knocked him down in round 7, rocked him multiple times throughout the fight. Fans expected Kovalev to demolish Chilemba, but Kovalev admitted before the fight that it was going to be tough. So when fans didn't get their expectations, they turn on Kovalev. Looking past all the emotions and noise, Kovalev did well. He won the fight clearly and did what he did best, hurt the other guy, knock him down and win the fight. He did struggle to land cleanly on Chilemba at times, but he never lose his composure, never got hurt and finished the fight strong.
As much as I love messing with you CST, I gotta agree with you here. Nonito Doak always seems like he has a tampon up his ass but tries to hide it using certain rhetoric
Chilemba is a awkward defensive fighter who is extremely durable. He has good reflexes and moves really well. Too bad he doesn't have more pop but even so he troubles almost everyone in the division and Kovalev beat him clearly. Some people are too emotional. I think this fight will add wrinkles in Kovalevs game and is a good preparation fight for Ward though I think Ward is alot better than Chilemba . The Ward-Kovalev fight has so many possibilities and fans need to enjoy it more rather than puttiing so much emotional stock into one fighter. It is a great fight for boxing!
I had Kovalev winning every round, it was a mismatch, but gave Kovalev some good work for the Ward fight. Ward will be fighting Brand, how will that prepare him for Kovalev? Compare Kovalev with Ward's other competition, Abraham, Kessler, Froch, Bika............Kovalev would have easily knocked them all out!!!
