Was it a good stoppage?

We can all agree it was a bad stoppage. But lets not let Kovalev off the hook please. His poor conditioning was apparent again and he ran the last minute of the fight.

 

AJ was done against klitscko in round 6 and look what happened

 

@shadow111

Even the ref now agrees that there were multiple low blows.

Are you just a Ward fanboy or is your monitor on the blink?

 

I saw that weeks failed as referee today and he needs a refresher course.

 

Americans now allowed to take Iv and low blow at will.

 

Awful stoppage, he hadn't gone down, he was clearly getting low blowed and Weeks had a good angle to view each low blow too.

I was really enjoying the fight up to then, was rooting for Ward near the end his skills on display were beautiful to watch but those low blows and Weeks willingness to ignore these dirty tactics tainted what was a really good fight up to that point.

 

At no point in time was AJ running from Klitschko. Our definition of done is obviously different.

 

it was intentional. i could see it being accidental when your head is being pushed down or the fighter moves his groin into the path of a punch, but these are guys who trained years to deliver punches from that position into a specific point on a stationary target, which is what kov was at that point.
i saw kov doing some illegal things in there too, and im not saying there would have been a different winner without the low blows, but with the benefit of slow motion replay, kov was repeatedly hit low, ignored by weeks, then weeks stops the fight immediately after an illegal low blow. im not satisfied the best man has been established.

 

Lol

 

That's a very reasonable view for you to have. However personally I saw all of them (except for the last one which was clearly low) as borderline. And remember Weeks did call one of those borderline ones low and gave Kovalev 5 minutes. Then remember Kovalev was complaining about another one being low and Weeks did not rule it low. So Weeks obviously was doing his best to not rule low blows just because Kov was complaining about it. I have no doubt that he was seeing flashbacks of RJJ BHop 2 in his mind while all this was going on, so he may have made the decision to not want to make any additional decisions without being sure that something happened. I'm personally very satisfied and have no doubt that Ward is the better man, but I am somewhat unhappy with the end of the fight, though I'm quite certain Ward would have closed the show regardless, technically the last one was a low blow and shouldn't have been stopped right after that. However if you're honest Kov was about to e stopped even before Ward threw that punch. With Kov hunched over, it's not unreasonable for Weeks to not be sure that it was a low blow and decided to stop it based on the punishment that Kov was taking.

 

This sums it up for me. Ward's body work was wearing Kov down some strayed low most didn't. The stoppage was bad and Kov should have been given 5 minutes to recover but I don't think it would ofaffected the result.

 

when the low blows happened, i gave weeks the benefit of the doubt when he refused the low blow complaints, because he is closer to the action, i just figured kov was politicking. but once i saw the enhanced replays, and weeks timing and reason for the stoppage, i got to question the win. even if i do credit ward with the win.

 

Great points, I credit Ward with the win too, and I had my issues with Weeks in the past, specifically for his reffing of RJJ vs BHops 2. If you haven't seen that fight I suggest you watch it, it is incredibly similar to what happened here.

But yeah at one point I think Kov was politicking. Frankly the one time Weeks did give Kov 5 minutes, it was a very benign punch both in power and in location. (squarely on the belt-line and with very little on it) Yet Kovalev was seriously acting like he was hurt badly by that and Weeks gave him 5 minutes. (much like how Weeks gave Hopkins 5 minutes repeatedly vs RJJ in the rematch after borderline punches by RJJ)

So I've had my issues with Weeks and frankly I had my concerns about this fight ending controversially when I heard he was reffing this fight. But I never dreamed it would end like this, I thought another controversial decision was also a strong possibility.

 

But the ref didn't react to the low blow, he just stopped the fight!