Low blows: Andre Ward vs Kovalev 2

The emotion in the passage you're referring to might be cynicism, though not necessarily directed at you personally.

I don't see any exaggeration in pointing out the facets of Ward's versatility.

See, that's where I feel it becomes a dead discussion. Which isn't a turbulent emotional response on my part, so much as a logical emotional response. How do you debate with that which is risible? I guess I'm doing so now.

By peer-reviewed, empirical standards, Ward is (at the absolute least) a good 'boxer'.

You are presenting a bold theory in the form of a statement. The empirical evidence is against you. The burden of proof weighs more greatly upon you than I.

See above. The emotion would be resignation. Logical resignation.

Countering me would be to back your theory up in some substantial way, instead of just pounding the same beats even after they've been offset.

Kessler was within his prime and Ward beat that guy outside and in, beautifully manipulating distance all night.

I gave you a name in my last post. There's an example of pounding the same beat even after it's been offset.

Boxer movers? I'd say Dawson is a better boxer and mover than Bute ever was. And it didn't take Ward very long to figure him out.

Bute was a boxer puncher. His movement wasn't of a quality that would have given Ward any real problem, given what else we've seen Andre handle. If Carl Froch had the feet to walk Bute around behind a pawing, metronomic lead hand and beat him up with neatly timed ambushes, what makes you think Ward couldn't do the same with even greater facility (albeit probably a later stoppage)? That's an SOG forte, right there.

Ward holds a W over a much more educated and far better boxer puncher than herky-jerky Bute. That's Sergey Kovalev, who has much smoother footwork than Bute, much keener control of range, an infinitely superior jab and just a wider array of skills period. And that's why Ward had problems with him, especially early. Once Ward got settled into those fights and Kovalev lost a smidgen of his crispness in the middle rounds, things started to even up at range. Kovalev is just that good when he's boxing behind his jab with full freshness. Bute isn't.

If Lucian Bute had gotten by Froch, the Ward-Bute fight would've happened. But Bute came up short, just as he did every other time he stepped up in his career. How is it that Ward would have proved himself more by beating Bute than the other men he did beat? That idea doesn't hold water.

When were RNS and Haymon ever in any contact re. a possible Ward-DeGale bout? That never happened, so far as we know. Team members say all kinds of things, but that matchup has never looked like it might be in the offing.

There's no reasonable way to state that moving up to 175 in search of Sergey Kovalev constitutes a duck of James DeGale.

Odd case you're making here.

BTW, speaking of Chunky, here's what he had to say about Ward - "I would go on and say he was actually a boxing genius."

Kessler was there or thereabouts. He might've been past the very peak of his prime years, but Vikings aren't so fragile a bunch that one relatively unpunishing defeat to Joe Calzaghe should spell the end of them.

Froch was certainly still within his fighting prime.

Ward's T/KO win over a prime LHW Kovalev trumps any single win he could realistically have registered at SMW. His win over Sully Barrera still has a chance to further appreciate in value, too.

Bika is one of the most awkward, messy fighters the game's seen in the last two decades. Ward got in the trenches with him and got his hands dirty.

Froch isn't about tickling contests, either. Aside from "holding and hitting", Ward was expertly manipulating range, rhythm and tempo behind his left lead for most of the fight, thudding jabs into Carl's chest and thoroughly vexing him from long to mid as well as on the inside.

Kessler was just too clean (and attitudinally green) for his own good when matched with the Oaktown Kid. But again, Ward showed plenty of nous in the outfighting department.

You're talking to me about turbulent emotions and then you come with this stuff about Ward being too rough and tough for your delicate sensibilities? Come now, bails.

I won't protest anyone who thinks Kovalev won the first fight. It was close.

It's not as if the rematch was entirely waged on the inside, though. When the Ward-Kovalev fights would enter the middle rounds, with Ward settling in and Kovalev losing just a shade of his crispness, things started to even up some at long to mid. Kovalev might've won more of the micro-level battles at range, but Ward won a respectable share.

Yeah, it's not as if Kovalev was one half of a highly anticipated struggle for P4P supremacy that dragged out for twenty rounds or anything. And nobody ever held him in high regard or suggested he might be an elite fighter on account of the manner in which he'd dealt with quality opposition. How's life been going under that rock, BTW?

Oh, the humanity.

 

Continued...

Ward has proven that he can box at range quite beautifully. He's not a copy of Leonard, but he doesn't need to be (that wasn't the point).

I wasn't comparing Ward and Leonard, nor suggesting a direct stylistic likeness between them. I was comparing a circumstance, i.e. quality boxer being outboxed by another quality boxer.

The point was that Ward encountering problems at long to mid-range against a boxer of Kovalev's caliber shouldn't cast his already considerably proven boxing ability into the gutter. That would be tantamount to saying that Hearns' outboxing of Leonard proved that Leonard was a crumby boxer. It makes no sense.

I didn't say it was poor, I said it deducted some of the credit for the W.

Everybody had Chad doing well for two sessions, but then Ward figured him out. I don't know that a guy hits the wall that quickly. It wasn't exactly a Hagler-Hearns pace they were setting in there. Weight-drain could conceivably account for the extent of ass-whooping and resulting T/KO Ward administered down the stretch, but then again, we've recently seen further evidence of this ability to produce unexpected stoppages going down the stretch against men less gritty and less built for the trenches than himself.

He lost a close one to an awkward ambush fighter, then reclaimed his crown from the guy who beat the guy. "Exposed" is strong language.

You said that Bute's L to Froch (which was an actual exposure, BTW) shouldn't rule out his chances of beating Ward, on account of "styles". You also effectively said that a boxer mover style would be poison for Ward, only to invalidate Chad (an actual boxer mover, unlike Bute) by dint of his loss to Pascal, with "styles" apparently no longer a concern.

Nah, bails. You're not even consistent.

Bute in combination with Dirrell would be the "stronger tick" I referred to, not Bute alone.

So, I'm "preaching" that Ward was very good at boxing long to mid-range. I'd be preaching to the choir, in that case, were it not for one errant choirboy named bailey. I won't knock you for not singing along with a popular tune (I applaud anybody who attacks a conventional wisdom with tenacity and solid reasoning), but you've presented nothing to back up your dissent.

The proof of Ward's ability at long to mid-range is on film, i.e. his documented championship career. He doesn't tend to fight at distance for the entire duration of bouts, because he's just not that limited. That doesn't mean he hasn't demonstrated serious ability at distance in sustained passages throughout the last 8 years. He has.

Bute was, indeed, Ward's doubter for all of about five minutes. It could have been longer, or they might have gotten the fight on by the early part of 2013 if only Bute hadn't been hammered into a traumatized pulp the first time he really stepped up (and by a fighter Ward had handily beaten just six months before).

I realise that guys were very high on him six years ago, but what did Bute ever do to make you tout him so now?

Going into 2012, his best work was probably Andrade X2. You probably do think Andrade's a good analogue for Ward, given your appraisal of SOG as nothing but a sorta skilled "brawler", but in reality he did nothing to prepare Bute for the skills Ward brought to the table.

Were you one of the guys who thought Bute had done a better job on Bika and Miranda and ergo was finely poised to take Ward off his perch? I'd hope not, since you previously said you weren't down for that kind of triangulation (Ward/Froch/Bute).

Hey, at least Ward was able to handle all of the common opponents he and Bute shared. But rest assured, Bute wasn't "exposed" by Froch, we only reserve that term for close decision losses, so one-sided, five-round beatdowns need not apply. (The emotion at play in this paragraph is sarcasm.)

I'm not even trying to go in on you, bails. You're just not presenting a good case here is all. Your consistency is falling apart and your argument (which began on shaky ground) has caved in on itself.

You might want to consider which of the two Andres bailed out of the tourney and laid low for years after. Just saying. The Matrix knew his best pair of track shoes weren't going to help him in that one.

As said, RNS and Haymon were never in any publicized contact re. a possible Ward-JDG bout.

As said, there's no reasonable way to state that moving up to 175 in search of Sergey Kovalev constitutes a duck of James DeGale.

Ward is certainly a goer, that shouldn't be in dispute by now. Which doesn't mean that he isn't also a very effective outboxer. You haven't provided any evidence to back up that very bold theory, and the burden of proof is on you.

How is it that you think Ward, a guy who throws under the SMW/LHW averages for punches a round, could have could have gotten through his résumé unbeaten if all he had was "brawling"?

Your theory is made of swiss cheese, friend. Full of holes. All the peer-reviewed, empirical evidence and sound reasoning is against you.

 

No, but one of my good debate team pals is.

I think you're flattering your own work a little, bails.

 

Thats hysterical.
Playing fair isnt playing victim. Foolish thing to say.
Give me examples because I dont see groups where Europeans are going along making claims as to being victims

Im not trying to insult you at all here but this comment screams more victim in it than anything else in my opinion.
You say boxing is niche in America, especially at HW and America has lost interest but when they valued it that everyone else could forget it.
Now all you talk about grit and not quitting etc, and that almost says we only like it when winning and when not winning pretend we are not interested, ie in effect quit.
Thats a victim attitude there IMO
You are right in that the British have shown amazing bravery throughout history.

 

I Cosign everything @navigator is saying. Hes just much smarter with a better eye than me.

 

@navigator

Will come back to you later. Cant be bothered to read such long posts and break them down at moment and just sticking to smaller posts at moment

Will reply later this week

 

Nah, you're on fire in your own right in this thread. I've just been catching up with your last few.

 

Without his illegal tactics and referees who permit him to foul, Ward isn't really much of a fighter.

 

Nobody in their right mind goes around and claims to be a victim. Actions and body language are what claims it. Look, I'll just say this - and just as you said I'll reiterate and say it right back to you, I'm also not trying to insult you and I've always liked you as a poster and valued your input - this is a cold and cruel ****ing world and so is evolution and when it's all boiled down it's nothing but a dog eat dog, kill or be killed world. Play by the rules and talk about fairness all you want, but it's the people who think and act like that that allow me and people like me to still populate the world and that allow me and my kind to stay in the genetic gene pool. If I want something bad enough, I'll do whatever I have to and whatever it takes to win. I'm a walking, talking failure. Not disputing that. But I've always picked myself back up and I've always given it my all. I'll never have a single regret over not trying hard enough or doing everything I could when I fall short - which is often. I'll never give you a fair fight, I'll never back down, and more than anything - I'll never kick it in or look for a way out, regardless of how overmatched I am or how terrified I am. I bite down, dig deep and fight harder. I'll never understand any other way of thinking. But before you dismiss that point of view, think of this - all the US knows about fighting, warfare, tactics, our entire military - it's all copied word for word and tactic for tactic from YOU guys, from our most basic and conventional forces all the way up to our most specialized and elite forces. The British SAS - the ORIGINAL special operations force - the one that every western military carbon copied and the force that scared the rest of the world from it's inception to the present day - THEY DON'T GIVE ANYBODY A FAIR ****ING FIGHT. They'd be total idiots to. You take your best and most motivated and driven soldiers, train them the best you can, arm and equip them the best you can, support them the best you can, give them the best intelligence you can, then go out and stack the deck and ambush the enemy. They don't line up on a battlefield and say "alright, shoot us a fair one - six on six!" That's ridiculous. You locate a target, fix their location, and hit them as hard and fast as you can. The SAS is a concept more than anything else. Military warfare is evolution and survival of the fittest at it's most accelerated and coldest form. Military warfare is also a great indicator of most everything else in life.

The "there is something in the water" argument stops being credible to anyone older than 8-9 years old. There isn't "something in the water" over there in the UK. The US is WAY BIGGER and WAY MORE POPULATED than the UK. I started boxing at a young age and started competing at age 18. Go to any major city in America and from the time I got into boxing until right now, there are barely any strictly boxing gyms left. If Americans are going into combat sports present day, it's MMA almost definitely. The American public stopped caring about boxing long ago. When we did care about it, we dominated and thats fact. You aren't producing superior physical specimens or athletes than the USA, our size and population make that ****ing absurd. You place a bigger emphasis, more importance, and more money on boxing right now than America does. That's it.

 

America aint nothing like the UK.Americans have a obsession with Firearms and Weapons,the UK way is Fists to sort out a problem,the evidence proves this.Boxing and stuff like Bare Knuckle fighting originated from the UK.I disagree with your point,Andre Ward is a supreme naturally talanted Boxer as most Afro-Americans are.Look at Ward v Froch and Hatton v Mayweather best examples of how different the fighting styles are in the US and UK.Americans are Boxers,Brits are Brawlers.Americans are Skilled,Brits are Gritty.

 

I'm not going back and reiterating myself after this. I already said the UK and the Irish are DOGS and GRITTY, I said that's who colonized us and where the US got it's base mentality from. I said the UK and Ireland were pretty much the European exception.

Kid, keep throwing your hands and what not, just don't take them to an American city and draw down on a gangster with them. Not very smart and you literally won't get very far. My whole point this entire time has been: This isn't grammar school anymore, the toughest kid on the playground isn't the king of the hill anymore. When you grow up and become an adult, the king of the hill is who is willing to take it the farthest, who is willing to do more to win and take more chances, and who wants it the most.

Throwing your hands around in a street fight seems wicked tough blah blah ****ing blah. I can fight my balls off but stopped being proud of it long ago. I'm not walking into a Roxbury(predominantly black and spanish neighborhood of Boston) housing project and picking a fight and throwing my hands up. That's dumb as ****. That's idiot, sucker, loser, and victim like ****. In a dog eat dog kill or be killed world, keep throwing up your hands at other people. If you can fight, sooner rather than later someone is gonna stick you up, and guess what tough guy? You're done, it's ****ing over, and evolution doesn't give s **** about rules or how tough you are. Thanks to you, you just took yourself out of the gene pool with your idiocy. Other guy wanted it more than you, and if he gets away with it, got what he wanted while you're sub surface six feet like an *******.

 

Yep! Good points. And certain individuals on here call elbows and low blows “Crafty” lol I know it’s a different fight, but the troll is on team Ward apparently, but did you see the elbow Rigobdeaux attempted against Loma? He hit nothing but air with that too though.

Ward knew he couldn’t legitimately beat Kovalev without the fouls. Even in the first fight where the vast majority feel Ward lost, Andre actually attempted a double leg takedown FFS!

If that puke Ward ever comes back... the guys at 175 need to get dirty right back with him. And I hope it’s Beterbiev digging those nut shots into him.

 

ANDRE SON OF GOD never low blowed any man, those were all legit body shots. Fact

 

Froch and Hatton might just conceivably have been able to bridge a skill differential with their grit and determination if the Americans hadn't matched them in those latter departments. Hatton predicated on being the rougher, tougher, more willful guy and ended up being surprised. He had to catch himself when complaining about Floyd's elbows and forearms in the post-fight interview, with the grudging acknowledgement, "It's not a tickling contest."

There's some kind of intersection between skill and grit we're observing here. Call it gritty skill, if you like. Hatton and Froch weren't unskilled, the Americans just had more of that good stuff with more finesse, plus the ability to match the Brits in the dark side of the trade and all the down and dirty tricks that go with it.

If that's the case, then why are them redcoats taking the side of Imran and his cronies while they abuse the native womenfolk in the street and take them for sex-slaves? If they were ever gritty on average, British men are soft and punky these days. Meanwhile, there's Trump fighting for western civilization out there, and them redcoats tell him he better not dare to visit these green and Islamified lands. And don't forget to perform Wuḍūʾ next time you go for a leak in the airport bathroom.

The UK is soft as all get out anymore. I've experienced enough of both countries to know which is more rugged (or, more accurately, which is further down the road to abject pussification).

 

Because you have the advantage of having access to Firearms,it's a good advantage to have.You want Freedom you go America not denying that.But remember their are worse places than America,i name the Middle East and Parts of Africa,you and i are privallaged remember that.