Let’s be honest, Povetkin weren’t great in the first bout. COVID / health is a poor excuse. He is/was a shot fighter.
Well, no. There should be medical professionals and the Board of Control disallowing him from fighting so soon after being hospitalised for covid19. The long-term effects of this virus (especially among people who have a bad bout of it and go to hospital) are still uncertain. It has a tendency to linger for a long time in many of those people and might have permanent effects in some. Povetkin was in hospital in November and December. He's then pretty much having to recover and enter a training camp for this fight in March. It's mental. If it happened anywhere else it would be considered a scandal.
I think it took from him whatever he had left though ie. the ability to get the shot off that cracked the melon last time out.
Both wont have been tested for this fight. We are in a pandemic we carn't be within 2 meters of each other unless its necessary and PED testing is not necessary.....
Sounds like a load of pony to me. Povetkin was very chilled and seemed happy before and after the fight. Never claimed he was hard done by or didn’t want the rematch etc.
If you look at the RBR from the first fight, plenty of us were saying then that Povetkin was completely shot, lacking balance, was tripping over his own feet, couldn’t let his hands go and had close to zero punch resistance. He was no worse last night, just another 7 months older.
I’d say Pov was well below his usual levels in training due to recovering from Covid, Pov took the money, it was a bit of a con job by everyone involved imo. I don’t expect him to be in a ring again and more so to Covid knocking the stuffing out of him than even his age at nearly 42. I’m glad he got a few mil all the same though even if not fit enough to fight, he’s been a true warrior through out his career