Did Ward Cheat In His Bout With Kessler?

This point is huge. Kessler not catching Ward coming in recklessly was the most surprising part of last night. Once Ward became extremely confident, he left his hands down on the way in constantly. Kessler didn't take advantage like any top fighter should. The question is this- was this because Kessler is overrated and one dimensional? He can only fight going forward? Or was it because Kessler was rusty and had an off night?

 

Kessler was outclassed simple as that the head butt was a distraction from the truth that exposed Kessler was a hype job

 

:rofl

 

One or two headbutts in a fight can be accidental.

Two or three headbutts and maybe it's just carelessness and recklessness.

FIVE HEADBUTTS ?
Dirty mother****ing cheating *******. :deal

 

I agree to some extent. Problem is that "smart-dirty" fighting put the decision of whos winning fare more into the hands (read taste) of the judges than a clean fight. In a clean fight we can all look to our scoreboards and oftentimes we agree more or less on the final score. As soon as we have a fight with dirty tactics it becomes a mess to score and it becomes difficult to gauge how the dirty tactics actually affected a fight. The latter explains all the comments on ESB about Ward cheating. I for one want a ref to make sure a fight is fought as cleanly as possible. The ref for Ward-Kessler didn't do that very well. (BTW I believe Ward would beat the version of Kessler we saw yesterday even without the dirty stuff.)

 

I dont think he cheated although while watching it i thought the ref was a little biased but even without that Ward would have won.

 

When did Ward? I just re-watched the fight and I only saw a couple of belt line shots in the 4th and 9th. The rest of Ward's body shots landed clean on Kessler's midriff. Ward also completely dominated that fight before the headbutts (whether you think they were intentional or not) happened late in the fight.

They're a bunch of ****ing trolls and clowns on this forum masquerading as boxing fans.

 

If there is a list of elite posters on ESB, you are on it.

 

I share your thoughts here completely! Will try to see if can catch Kessler walking his dog. Then I'll promise to raise the questions. If Kessler's vision was indeed damaged due to headbutting I can understand he couldn't try harder to catch Ward. It's a puzzle to me because I think the issue was touched on by Richard Olsen. It makes me wonder if Kessler listens carefully to what Richard suggests???

 

Regardless of cheating, Kessler would surely have lost anyway. The fight wasn't won by Ward headbutting, holding and hitting while holding, but by him winning the fight from the distance.

Kesslers jabs were used far to seldom, and Ward landed much more the entire fight.

I suppose theoretically the first cut from a headbutt could've spoiled Kesslers chances. But nothing seemed to indicate, that he were getting a better grip on the match anyways.

Kessler looked very rusty. His timing was off and there was no precision. Unfortunately that has been the story since Andrade imo.

Did Ward cheat? Well, yeah, sort of. But it didn't change anything noteworthy in a quite onesided affair.

And I'm from Denmark, so I definitely wanted to see Kessler win. Hope (and believes) he'll do better against Froch.

 

If you keep headbutting its cheating so yes he did cheat.Kessler was not boxing well though.

 

looked like he did it on purpose. At the very least, he got undue benefit from them

 

He also got undue benefit from Kessler being a ****ing statue, and being unable to pull the trigger for basically the whole fight.

This fight is the story of Kessler fighting like a 10 fight amateur and Ward TAKING his belt from him. The headbutts and cheating and holding talk are all just diversions from the real question, which should be "How did Kessler get through 43 fights without learning some very fundamental things in boxing like head movement, moving at angles, and protecting yourself in a clinch until the ref breaks you"?

The single most baffling thing to me, except for Kessler not being able to make Ward pay for his overconfidence in the middle rounds, was that Kessler seemed completely baffled when Ward would hit him coming out of a clinch. He would just back straight up and try to reset. Not when the ref broke them, mind you, because he rarely did, but when they fought their way out of the clinch. He would step back, gingerly raise his hands to his face, and get popped right in the mouth. EVERY TIME.

What's the first rule of boxing? Protect yourself at all times. He failed to do even that basic thing and people expected him to win this fight?

I know he is better than that, and I hope he comes back more motivated for his remaining fights. I still think Ward has his number 10 times out of 10 though.

 

Ahh AA is the man at 168...:deal

 

The thing is Kessler did not realize that you can actually get out of the way of a head butt or lets say things like punches. You can block you know. The fact that Ward switched stances to southpaw so much kind of added to it. Ward does have a big ass head as well so that adds to it.