I'm going with Ward by SD 8-4, 9-3, 6-6. Ward wins and Krusher instantly enacts his rematch clause. Why will Ward win? Ring generalship, better jab, will control the distance of the fight, and I believe he has better intangibles/more stamina. Kovalev can win if he lands clean early, and keeps his jab in Wards chest---he must CONSTANTLY jab. Surprise of the fight? Ward will knock down Kov with either a body shot or check hook late in the fight.
Fight won't be anything like Kovalev and B Hop, except that it will go 12 rounds. Ward is the first dude who isn't afraid of Kovalev. As much as Ward doesn't have KO power, he still has a very good jab and very good left hook, and Kovalev still backs up in straight lines whenever he gets hit.
Who's the last guy Kovalev knocked out with one punch? Kov has very very good power, but it's still accumulation power.
Virgil STFU man wtf is this... the way Sergey lost his dad? The way JDJ questioned your credentials yesterday? The way there's a lot of suffering in boxing yet the challenger makes more than the champ in this fight? "Those questions need to be asked"? What a load of BS. Worst thing is he's wasting his breath, Sergey don't give a damn about your attempts at going psychological on him.
Its hard to call. How good was that Hopkins win really? People forget that Dawson shut him out as well and Murat gave him his fair share of problems. Would them two be favourite to beat Ward at 175? I doubt it. Hopkins problem was timing. It was off by about 5 seconds. And his feet weren't agile enough anymore to get himself into the firing range. If Pascal had superior conditioning and better footwork he could have done something to Krusher. As it was , his tiny gas tank and sporadic burst box wasn't good enough. He landed plenty but didn't have the ability to follow up with anything. Ward is a very gifted boxer , he has the grade A footwork to position itself to throw and follow up with combinations. Where Pascal was dangerous with the first few pot shots , Ward is dangerous with the follow up shots as he lures guys into thinking he about to clinch but whips in sneaky hooks instead. He has a lot of tricks to his trade and I don't think Keusher has that many. Ward may also go southie and use hard left hand leads to exploit the defensive gap exposed by Chilemba. Its really hard to tell how he will cope in this fight. He hasn't faced this power size and strength before. Its a great match-up. There's not enough 50-50 fights like this anymore.
your post makes it sound like 75/25 lol. stop it dino stop sitting on the fence mr ronseal, you think wards gonna win go for it.