Yes, I believe that it did. On Friday, a friend of mine (one of the experts polled that picked Berchelt) said that everyone was in top condition and that nobody would have any excuses. It sounded funny to me. All day Saturday the chatter was about how much weight he had put on. Think about it: if you start camp at 144, work the weight off for 6 weeks, then cut 5 pounds at the end, you aren't going to rehydrate 20 pounds. But if you started camp way overweight, then cut a bunch at the end...in the first round when he was sluggish, I knew.
Berchelt didn't get knocked out. In fact, he won. In fact, Valdez got knocked out. I'll keep repeating this until I build a base that believes it.
Valdez's speed has nothing to do with his win. Both Berchelt and him have almost the same speed. He won because he and his team prepared the right and very spot-on strategy against Berchelt. That running, running, clinching from Valdez...that was on purpose. Berchelt has no anti-clinch strategy and was frustrated by it.
I disagree. What´s the point in fixing it anyways? And why cut the fight so close? And besides, Kovalev fought a similar fight vs Canelo as he did with Yarde. The only difference being that Yarde was a lot easier to hit. And the looser getting a fight deal? Happens pretty often, actually. The first one to come to mind is Bradley-Alexander. And not quite exactly the same, but Jacobs got a 3 fight deal with DAZN by agreeing to the Alvarez fight.
What's the point in fixing it? Canelo being a 4 (or 5 weight division champion) Money? + DAZN subscriptions? Continuation of the cash cow/fraudulent legacy of Canelo? There's whole heaps of potential reasons. Kovalev absolutely did not fight Canelo similar to how he fought Yarde. That's just being dishonest. You disagree with what exactly because the attributes I mentioned Kovalev displays time and time again were completely absent in the Canelo fight. Naming a fight where Jacobs was inactive for the 6 rounds against Canelo is not a good example where the loser gets a fight deal.
Claiming evidence of conspiracy because a guy looks bad in a fight doesn't make a lot of sense. This is especially true when you are talking about a faded fighter like Kovalev, who had recently been knocked out twice and had just been through a war against Yarde. Also, the Alvarez rematch was pretty similar to the Canelo fight, only against a much better opponent (and that was pre-Yarde). Kov is finished at championship level, and that was true even before Canelo.
I saw some clinching in the later rounds, but what won Valdez the fight was his movement and quicker hands. He boxed beautifully imo. He caught Berchelt early, kept him honest, then caught him hard and hurt him and Berchelt never seemed to fully recover.
What? It makes complete sense, that's not an argument .. This is just a trash post to be honest you don't actually address anything and no the Alvarez rematch was nothing like the Canelo fight. His performance is not indicative of someone who is past it, even someone who is past it would have actually tried to engage in landing punches
You're the one making the argument so it's up to you to support it. All you point to is Kov's poor performance and speculative financial motives. The Kovalev against Alvarez x2 was very different from the prime version. And then he got into another war against a guy he'd have demolished in his prime, didn't heal properly and had a short camp prior to Canelo. Also, quintessential shotness is not being able to pull the trigger. Sometimes the guy doesn't punch at all and sometimes can't throw with the snap he did in the past. That's a completely normal thing for a late 30s shopworn hard-living fighter. Tbh, Kovalev did a hell of a lot better than I thought he would. Compare Kov/Canelo vs Roy Jones/Glen Johnson. Different type of fights but same phenomenon. No conspiracy, just a shot fighter who can't mount an offense any more. And Kovalev performed much much better against Canelo than Roy did against Johnson.
Dude, just no. I'm very aware of how poor a shot fighter can be. A shot fighter does not perform the way Kovalev did in the Canelo fight. A shot fighter doesn't continuously paw his jab throughout the entire fight especially when the shot fighter has historically and continuously used powerful jabs. Kovalev has never just stuck his hand out like that and continuously paw. What so because he is shot he all of a sudden starts pawing, something he never does? A shot fighter does not show absolute minimal hesistance to remove himself from counters (as he has shown in every single. damn. fight. including as recent as the Yarde and Alvarez 2 fights). A shot fighter does not pull his punches, throw zero punches with intent, throw the right hand at all (or anything but the paw jab) . You're essentially saying Kovalev just forgot all these attributes following the Yarde fight... A fight where although he was hurt in one round dominated the fight and finished Yarde off with a power jab. I don't buy that Kovalev lost all these historically and consistently used attributes following one round where he was hurt. If he did I'd strongly suspect some form a CTE or brain damage, and in that case what kind of disgraceful matchmaking is this? For a guy who has taken Clenbuterol (and likely still is or some other stack) and consistently has dodgy scorecards, a fix is highly likely.
its probably related to the fact the guy did a massive weight cut before weigh-in and balloned 17 lbs for fight night. He put a massive strain in his body and it showed with how slow and gassed he was.
I get the sense you don't watch a lot of boxing. Shot fighters try to reinvent themselves all the time. Obviously, it rarely works. You'll have declined fighters like Bernard Hopkins who can do it, but generally they start losing. Kovalev actually had success in the very fight you accuse him of taking a dive, which you refuse to acknowledge. He has lost his punch resistance and also has lost *confidence* in his punch resistance, hence the reason he & McGirt changed his style. They both talked about it publicly. Guys paw with their jabs when they are trying not to get hit. Kov didn't want to get hit and instead relied on his reach advantage, which again kind of worked. It's nothing suspicious at all. Look at how differently a prime fighter like Joshua changed up his style in Ruiz II. He didn't want to commit on his shots and didn't throw as hard. This is boxing and especially for a declined fighter who can no longer pull the trigger like he could. And this is coming from someone who believes Canelo is a peds monster. The difference is that you are accusing Kovalev of also behaving disgracefully, which isn't justified.
Just terrible arguments all round and then you say I don't watch a lot of boxing. Really naive mate. It's almost as if you have never watched Kovalev fight before the fight against Canelo. Again you haven't addressed any of my points properly. Can you at least go through the points made if you're going to debate it? Your argument that Kovalev was having success in the fight is just invalid. It was a sparring session, so because Kovalev was winning a sparring session it wasn't a fix? Not much logic there. Your argument that boxers paw their jabs is just down right irrelevant and completely avoidant of my point. Kovalev has never pawed the jab out like that consistently round after round. Kovalev is also a racist drunk why would you think he wouldn't disgrace himself for a sweet payday. Please go through my points and address them properly if you want to try and claim you've shot down my arguments. Claiming his completely ridiculous unconcerned performance was based on Kovalev being shot or "trying to reinvent himself" are poor arguments.
