I am intrigued as to peoples opinion - will this bout be a real fight like say GGG vs Canelo fights, Or is it going to be a pre paid sparring session where they only touch each others guard tenderly with arm punches? Anyone who watched that fight IMO and did not see how clearly Kov was holding back..then YDKSAB. I remember watching it and literally going "wtf is kovalev doing here?" THOUGHTS?
Exactly bro. The Kovalev fight is the first time I've legit thought..."wait a minute, is this **** fixed".. Never had that thought come across my mind in boxing matches before that fight. It absolutely was an organised fix/sparring session. I'm still shocked that there hasn't been some kind of investigation into the fight. Since then Canelo has engaged in another blatant fixed fight (Yildrim) and fights that are very very suspect (Smith and Plant - I strongly believe both fights are fixed, Smith more so). Its tainted my opinion of boxing as a whole and the stupid fans that blindly follow it. Im also certain Bivol will not come to fight. At this point, Canelo has become some weird ginger circus show
Could there have been some other reason why Kovalev fought so cautiously? Clearly Kovalev didn't look like his usual self, no ones denying that. It's speculation as to what caused that or what was behind that. We've seen instances in history where fighters don't look like themselves, fight super cautiously, without their normal energy or power. Why did Michael Spinks "freeze" against Tyson. Michael Spinks looked nothing like the fighter who went 15 rounds with Holmes twice that night. Why did Ali look so bad against Leon Spinks the first time, like he had no energy, barely threw a meaningful punch all night, then in the second fight looked like a completely different fighter and dominated Leon? Was Tyson Michael Spinks a fix? Was Ali Leon Spinks 1 a fix? There was obviously something wrong and different about Kovalev that night and the way he fought Canelo. He didn't have the usual force behind his punches, he looked very scared in there against Canelo. All that is true, but we don't know any more than that as to what the reasons were behind that. And if it was an agreed upon "fix" / sparring session with rigged judges, then why did Canelo end up sparking him out? The far more reasoned interpretation of why that happened is that Kovalev had his own personal problems that he was dealing with that made him weaker. Maybe he was drinking heavily in the lead up to the fight. Ever thought of that?
Smith took a savage beating... If it was fixed why would he go all 12... He ended up with a bad arm injury aswell... Just saying if it was a fix he would have gone down in the 6-8th round before he started to get meat tenderized.
A million litres of vodka and all of the personal problems in the world doenst explain what we saw from Kov that night in my opinion. It was blatent corruption. I am a Canelo fan and think hes an ATG, but that fight left a most bitter taste in my mouth. If i was n Kovs position, at that age, and had the chance to make my ultimate retirement payday I would consider it too. But it is what it is, that was sparring. In fact I see more aggresive sparring in my gym every week than that fight. Smith was also a trully bizzare showing, after his KO of groves he was what I considered a nightmare for any fighter, like Kovalev I was excited to see how Canelo dealt with Smiths jab. Both Kovalev and Smith where MUCH bigger guys, and guys known for their exceptional jab. In both of these fights I would go as far as to say the MAIN reason I wanted to watch is to see how the much smaller canelo dealt with these two awesome jabs from much larger men. The answer was he did not have to deal with the jab as neither bloody threw one! And if it was it was arm punches, with 20% of the snap I had seen either exhibit previously. (Even before smiths arm was broken down he let canelo walk right in, and did NOTHING with his jab. It seems like when Canelo steps up his opposition, his opposition looses what their good at. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Bivol we see is the OPPOSITE than the bivol we expect. What do you think Bivols biggest advantage is over Canelo, and what is his best tool /path to victory. I would say its his footwork, how does Canelo deal with such a skilled, foot firstboxer. If thats the case and histroy is to repeat itself, expect to see Bivol fight like Arthur Abraham.
Kovalev forget to throw his (deadly and accurate) right hand in his Canelo fight. His jab was working well but he seemed to forget that he had a right arm too.
He was jabbing but I did not see the shotgun of a jab that he used to grind down fighters as slick as Ward in the first fight
That's your opinion, that's your "feeling". Canelo cannot be blamed for the sub-par performances of his opponents. Was it Mike Tyson's fault that Michael Spinks looked so poor against him after looking so good against Holmes? Was Mike Tyson in on a conspiracy of corruption that caused Michael Spinks to "freeze" and look so bad against him? Who's fault was it that Kovalev didn't look his normal self? That's not Canelo's problem if his opponents "freeze" and fight scared against him like Michael Spinks did against Tyson. Kovalev fighting scared and looking weak is Kovalev's problem. Canelo did what he had to do. No one ever took away Michael Spinks as a quality win for Tyson because he froze, Kovalev did not fight like his normal self, but that's not Canelo's problem. Kovalev clearly has demons and was probably drinking heavily in the lead up to the fight, which caused him to be weak and fight scared on the night. Also the delay waiting for the UFC event to end probably didn't help Kovalev's performance. With Smith, I think the problem was that he was starting to outgrow the weight class. Most people thought he got a gift vs Ryder which was before he fought Canelo. So the writing was already on the wall that he was no longer his "usual" self when he fought Ryder and struggled. Also the KO of Groves was a bit of a red herring. Groves was already pretty much washed up at that point. Groves was never the same after being KO'd by Froch twice, I know he somehow beat Eubanks Jr which was a quality win, but by the time he fought Smith he was not even close to what he was. Yes it was an impressive win by Smith he looked like a beast that night, but 2 years later but he was really never "that" guy again at 168. Again, this is the stuff of conspiracies, that there's some Canelo voodoo magic that makes certain fighters perform horribly when he steps up to fight him. Rather than blame Canelo for the poor performances of his opponents, I think we need to blame the fighters who perform poorly for not living up to the standards that fans put them up to. Billy Joe Saunders was also supposed to be all wrong for Canelo. Several repudiable posters predicted Saunders would easily outbox Canelo. The way Saunders looked vs David Lemieux, he looked unbeatable, so I could understand why people thought that. Once again, a fighter who was supposed to be all wrong for Canelo ended up not living up to his own hype, and was never as good as he looked vs David Lemieux. Even I made that kind of mistake, I thought Khan would be all wrong for Kell Brook, but obviously we saw a much poorer Khan than I could have ever thought, and Kell easily dominated him. But would the Khan who fought Maidana or Devon Alexander beaten Kell Brook? I'm sure of it, just as you were led to believe that the Callum Smith who KO'd Groves could beat Canelo. Or the Kovalev who fought Ward would have beaten Canelo. Prime Larry Holmes or even the Michael Spinks who fought and beat Holmes would have given Tyson hell. That's what everyone wanted to see. THAT Michael Spinks vs Tyson, but we never got that now did we. I understand where you're coming from, but just because of what happened to Kovalev and Smith, doesn't mean the same thing will happen to Bivol. The difference between Bivol and Kovalev and Smith is that : 1) Bivol isn't outgrowing his weight class like Smith was 2) Bivol isn't an alcoholic like Kovalev who was stopped brutally twice, first by Ward then by Eleider Alvarez, and then struggled vs Yarde, and was seen as well past his best by the time he fought Canelo. None of the problems that affected Kovalev, Callum Smith, or even Saunders applies to Bivol. Bivol is a freaking Russian Machine. He's in his prime, and there's no reason to expect him to not be at his best. But if Canelo wins, I'm sure his haters will find any reason or conspiracy they can come up with to discredit it. I'm not convinced Canelo is going to be able to beat Bivol. This is a very uphill and difficult challenge for him.
The shotgun of a jab was not there vs Canelo. It was a very week, pawing jab. The question is why did Kovalev fight like that. The most rational explanation is that Kovalev was unhealthy, weak, and fought scared, due to age, distractions, and his own demons.
He threw a right hand and seemed shocked when he drove Canelo back, like he forgot that he was supposed to follow the script.
You could be making a mountain out of molehill there. I get that the way Kovalev performed was suspicious and would lead some people to believe something was afoot. But that doensn't mean that he was in on some kind of a script. He may have just been feeling very chinny and cautious that night, due to poor preparation or self doubt. Sometimes fighters just have a bad fight week for whatever reason and aren't in the mood to fight on the night and end up giving a sub-par performance. In Kovalev's case, he had a turbulent couple of years with plenty of setbacks and struggles in and out of the ring before he fought Canelo. Doubt can creep in when facing the #1 P4P fighter, especially after his failures vs Ward and E Alvarez. He would have every reason to doubt himself going into the Canelo fight and fight super cautious. He probably was more focused on not getting KO'd again than fighting aggressively, and it created that sort of gunshy, safety first performance.
