Lol at all these theories and thinking he took a dive. Kovalev was performing fine and probably winning the fight until he got caught. Yarde nearly had him out of there in round 8 but used his experience, which was far far greater than Yarde’s, to get through the fight. Canelo couldn’t get through to that stage until round 11. Kovalev was never going to go all out and try and go toe to toe with Canelo, did any of you watch the Eleider Alvarez rematch and see how timid he fought then? I guess he was also waiting to take a dive in that one aswell? Kovalev is a proud man, well done to him on a good career and others should put some respect on his name.
Weight classes exist for a reason. A cast iron jaw at junior middleweight is a china chin at light heavyweight. All time great power at junior middleweight is weak power at light heavyweight too. Usually when people try to jump up a weight class for a belt they do it against a guy who's moved up a weight class or two himself, or a guy who is known as a feather fist who won't easily blow them out of the ring. Kovalev is known for having great power at the weight. This farce should have been over in a round.
He made money, but destroyed his legacy and lost respect. Kovalev has his own sports brand, who nobody will buy anymore. He is an idiot. Should have fought instead of just cashing out.
That was a pointless strategy since Canelo never loses on the cards. Kovalev was handling Canelo like you would handle a very expensive, fragile vase.
We get it, you picked him to win and he didn’t. Now you can’t accept that reality and would rather play virtual comedian instead.
I have no doubt about the authenticity of the punch but when I say suspect, Im talking about Kovalev’s actions that led to the KO. That is what people are complaining about. Not the KO combo. The manner in which he fought was just so weird and unnatural.
But it wasn’t though? People are thinking of the old Kovalev who has been and long gone. Were you moaning about him fighting that way against eleider Alvarez? He was weary of being knocked out in a lesser fighter in Eleider Alvarez so he wasn’t gonna suddenly change when fighting Canelo.
So yeah, he was totally shot, both mentally and physically. Gun shy and just tried to survive for as long as he could.
I wonder if it have anything to do with him fighting an elite counter puncher who used his superior reflexes and speed to make him pay every single time he opened up?
Exactly, i can justify this strategy if you are smaller fighter with no power and you have 0 chance to KO the cash cow, so you try to outbox him and hope for a ****ing christmas miracle that you wont get robbed. No matter how bad his shape was, he had better chance to just bomb Canelo for 3 rounds straight trying to KO him and gas out, than winning every single round and getting robbed 100%. Kovalev always complained how he was handled by judges in amateurs and after first Ward fight, so i dont believe he was really believing he can win against Alvarez fighting like that. The fight was a farce, a **** show.