Sergey Kovalev - light heavyweight all time placement?

No shot at the top 10, you could argue top 15-20 in a head to head sense.

Somewhere between top 20-30 sounds about right.

In his prime few light heavies hit harder, he have very good skills and taking a punch wasn't an issue. You could say he didn't age well as his punch resistance went away. He also wasn't lucky not he cards or with the ref calling fouls in two defeats vs Ward.

 

Was he? Not to be a Boxrec warrior, and happy to be corrected, but following the record of who lost to who i couldn't find him to be one. If we go back from now to Hill-Maske then it looks like this

Beterbeiv - 0 defences
Gvozdyk - 1 defence
Stevenson - 2 defences
Thomas Williams Jr - 0 defences
Edwin Rodriguez - 4 defences
Denis Grachev - 0 defences
Zsolt Erdei - 14 defences
Julio Cesar Gonzalez - 0 defences
Dariuzs Mikalshevski - 14 defences
Virgil Hill - 0 defences

Hill vs Maske

Or am I dreadfully wrong and have just exposed myself?

 

WoW!! The guys most of the guys you favor him against and 50/50 is absolutely mind boggling to me...Matthew..Eddie ect ect. NIMO at all

 

though BoxRec's Computer points Ratings system isn't as good as it should be, it's still a good and quick resource to assess fighters based on Era's, number of fights and comp/opponents.

now here is their present Top 50 L-HWs at least 20 of them will be well superior to Kovalev, to say nothing of some of those fighters opponents, and to say nothing of some of the next 50 and some of their opponents too.

https://boxrec.com/en/ratings?cva[c...ht&cva[sex]=M&cva[stance]=&cva[status]=&r_go=

Lists ARE Impossible, but rest assured there are at least 200 L-HW's in Boxing History that would beat Kovalev convincingly!

 

I don't think sitting back and waiting for Kovalev to run out of steam is wise, and once Franklin realizes that he can't wait all night and he needs to win some rounds it'd be too late. Kovalev is a pretty smart fighter and would know exchanges with Matt were a quick way of waking up in a hospital bed asking what round it was. He'd use his jab and box imo.

Eddie has a perfect style to beat Kovalev, he shows up like he did vs Johnson and SK gets Krushed, body shots like that with a guy who can somewhat match his jab get Kovalev stopped. But it's a 50-50 for me as it's very rare that Eddie showed up I that form.

 

Yaqui Lopez himself is better than Kovalev. Kovalev wouldn't even be a top rated contender had he fought in the mid to late 70's.

 

You must not have watched much prime Franklin because he didnt wait on anyone. He was always looking for the KO which he could deliver with eather hand. Both these guys KO Kovalev within 8 IMO

 

He smokes Joe Louis.

KO via triple jab

 

Edwin Rodriguez lost to Ward and Grachiev beat Erdei in a ten rounder. I have the lineage dying with Ward or Erdei.

 

I think Kovalev had a worse overall career than Tarver and Dawson. He's neck and neck with Stevenson, which is fitting.

 

Both were at 168, I looked into them both and found nothing to go on there.

 

Not true. The weights are listed on boxrec. All weights were over 168 and under 175. Edit: Rodriguez was under 168 and Ward over, so it was a light heavy bout technically.

Some claim that Dawson—Pascal was a new lineage but I’m not one of them.