He a favorite of mine at LHW but you wouldn't call him remarkable. I loved his fights with Briggs, who was pretty decent even though he fell off very quickly after those fights. But you shouldn't be having quite evenly matched wars with a guy like Briggs if you expect to hang with Kov. I think the extra mass and experience made him far more formidable later on.
Kovalev beat SOB Ward, no doubt about it. Harold Lederman had the fight 116 - 111 Kovalev and he wanted Ward to win, even Max and Roid Jones thought Kovalev beat Ward, 82 % of boxing writers and even Ward fans booed the criminal decision. Kovalev fought ofter, SOB will hold on to the title forever and never fight..............
I pick Kovalev too, probably by UD. I doubt that Kovalev could replicate the success that Adamek had moving up, but h2h at 175 lb I think Kovalev is better.
LHW wasn't Adamek's natural division really. He was boiling down massively to come in under the limit and it affected his stamina and chin. That was most evident in the Dawson fight where he let Dawson rag doll him for twelve rounds without offering anything much in response. You could say that was due to levels, but considering how weirdly passive Adamek was in that fight and the fact that he moved up straight after and looked leagues better leads me to think it was a legitimate case of bad weight draining. So at LHW I'd have to favour the smaller man in Kovalev, either by knockout or wide decision. At cruiserweight it becomes a different matter.
You might have convinced me with your argument that Kovalev takes Adamek at LHW but Adamek vs Kovalev at Cruiser... like Absolutely said... it would be a different matter.
I think Adamek versus Kov would be a fight of the year candidate. Ever since i've been here, most posters have sold Adamek short. But he's a two division titlist (LtHW and CW), and gave a pretty good account for himself at HW. It's not a foregone conclusion that Kov wins, as it would have been a tough fight for both guys.
For sure. Adamek never been ko'd unless you count Molina knocking out his corpse in fight 55 for Adamek. I think Adamek would have a much better chance at hurting Kovalev then Ward had, even at LHW.
You made me scroll up and read Absolutely's post lol.. At cruiserweight of course we don't know at this stage or we might never find out at all, so I'm not going to disagree with you. Adamek did seems very drain at lightheavyweight that suggest to me that he will indeed do better at a higher weight class, unfortunately there was not much competition there so he rolled his dice at heavyweight. I remembered watching the adamek briggs fight in the pub in Sydney. I was cheering hard when Briggs dropped him in the early rounds, a few eyes turned and looked at me angrily, I thought they gonna punch me. I was a new immigrant at the time, so I can't differentiate those patrons who turned out to be most polish. But they are all cool and we were treated a great fight.
I think it's close to a toss-up, but I'd probably give Sergey a slight edge as he seems to fill that weight out better and more consistently. Adamek was having trouble making 175 his last few fights at the weight. IMHO, the one weight class where Adamek was a standout was at cruiserweight. He was way too small at heavyweight, and I think he was a little too big to maximize his effectiveness during his stint at 175.
And on that note, 2 quick things: 1. I always wish Adamek stayed at cruiser 2. While I would favor Kovalev against Adamek at 175, one guy I think Adamek would have matched up great against at 175 is Calzaghe.