All I'm saying is Ward has never been knocked unconscious. Kovalev has, and with headgear on to boot.
David Tua was knocked out by Savon in 15 seconds in the amateurs. Yet he showed iron chin in the pros. Amateur fights don't count. Ward was dropped hard by Boone and got put on ***** street in an early fight. Professional fights count.
There's zero evidence he was knocked unconscious, the ref stopped the contest, but even in the short clip, Kovalev appears to be rocking to get back up after going down against Atoev, and for the record, Atoev has wins over Beterbiev, Degale and he stopped Bejanaru, who currently competes at Heavyweight. Atoev is a top notch amateur, Kovalev wasn't a very good amateur, and has improved greatly since turning pro. And he and Beterbiev fought to almost a draw 25:24 in the ams, and he took his power well evidently. And you can't say Beterbiev doesn't have power to stop guys.
I'm hearing that Ward looked slower last night. I think there's a good chance Kovalev could stop him.
Yeah he did, he didn't look good at all, it was a far worse showing than Kovalev had against Chilemba, he was apprehensive to punch in combination and taste the power of Brand, who isn't anything close to being a KO artist. And he at times was actually making an effort to stop Brand, but nothing worked.
Kovalev tasted the canvas against that very same fighter. And Kovalev was dropped by Caparello as well. :smoke
Rums, why are posters saying that Kov and Ward looked terrible in their fights leading up to their fight?:huh Why? What's your guess?
I'd say extremely high expectations is one of the legit reasons as to why we see people dissing Kovalev and Ward's respective efforts against Chilemba and Brand. I thought they both got good work in, and that they both met their objectives.
I was being harsh, Ward did his job last night, he beat Brand 120-108, that being said, he was never all that impressive either, and level of opponent must be taken into consideration here. The reality is that Brand would be dominated by Chilemba as well, not to mention, by Vlasov, Lepikhin, Bellew, Ngumbo and Oosthuizen as well, all Chilemba victims. In picking Chilemba that was a perfect opponent for Kovalev to prepare himself with, Brand forcing Ward to become a pressure fighter walking him down, stylistically didn't do a damn thing to prepare Ward for the Krusher, and his reflexes and speed were a tad bit off.
Nah. I remember Felix knocking everyone out with that vaunted right hand. I think it was a clean right hand if memory serves.
I'm not getting too interested in Kovalev-Ward because I cannot help feeling Ward is going to back out AGAIN!! I hope I'm wrong just for once LOL