Overall, Ward was slightly better than the first fight, Kovalev slightly worse. Ward's incessant low blows had a significant effect on the fight. Weeks should have taken a point off Ward for too many low blows. Weeks made a mistake with the stoppage. He's admitted it. It was a stoppage forced by low blows. This taints the win, unfortunately. However, Ward did hurt Kovalev with a right hand to the head, and I think Ward was on his way to a UD if it wasn't for the low blows.
I'm disappointed in Kov's performance, he was marginally better in rounds 1-7 compared to the first fight. He didn't make adjustments, either couldn't or didn't want to. Again most rounds were close and in the 8th things went off the rails.
When has he admitted it? That's a fake twitter account. It was NOT a stoppage forced by low blows. Every punch leading up to the last one was on the belt, that right hand was the beginning of the end for Sergey. The man was all over the place! He was hit with a few more body shots and he was slouching forwards, prompting the stoppage. He was no longer throwing at that point nor intelligently defending himself. How could they let him go on?
I agree ward mentalky and physically wrecked kovalev. A fighter who keeps crying about borderline low blows doesn't really want to be there I picked up on this after he turned his back on ward another dead sign that he'd rather be somewhere else he mentally checked out. Kovalev would have done a no mas had the fight continued I'm certain of it. Ward is a genius he said with a guy like that you have to take his head and his body will follow and he couldn't have been more spot on.
Kovalev was breathing heavily by the end of the 4th round, I doubt a few low blows would cause that. He was never going to win that fight with or without the ref deducting a point from Ward, and has only himself to blame for his poor stamina. And I don't agree that the low blow caused the stoppage. First the stoppage was wrong, Kovalev was being kept up by the ropes and the ref should've called it a KD and gave Kovalev a 10 count. The final low blow in the gifs came after Kovalev leaned against the ropes and was alredy in a very bad shape.
Yep. Salido landed 10x worse low blows on Lomachenko and landed about a 100 more but Loma just kept trying to fight back.
Indeed, not every blow was low. On third watching there were less low blows in the eighth than I originally thought. But the last was undoubtedly.
Hmmm, the Twitter account looked legit to me. As I mentioned to @alexthegreatmc, on watching the eighth a third time there were less low blows than I had thought when writing the OP.
Definitely. 3 body shots in the end, first two were legit, the final one was low. Here's my opinion, I think Ward was purposely aiming for the border since it causes more damage. I think he was going as low as allowed.
Regarding point 2, those previous low blows helped him get back into the fight by slowing Kovalev down.
Just a lot of excuses. Blows slightlys low if even that other than the last one is why Kovalev was out of breath and got clocked in the chin bone and didn't know where he was anymore? BS. He lost because Ward put a wrecking on him. I still can't believe how easily beat up Kovalev. I would have thought this impossible. Ward is a phenom. Kovalev was supposed to kill him. Instead he got killed.
More than 1 of those blows looks low to me, maybe 3. Ward should have been warned earlier imo and then point deducted, kov given time to recover and fight goes on, the judges handed the titles to ward last fight and now the ref allows the fight to end on wards low blows, noone is beating ward at home, hes blessed, if its not the judges, its his head butts, low blows or the ref, always something with him The ref was directly looking at that last low blow, he must be paid off or totally blind or totally biased
