How would Henry Hank do today?

The issue was that today's lightheavy division was weaker than the so-called Golden Era. I picked 1960 at random and came up with that list from Ring. Those were the versions who were ranked where they were ranked. Take them on that.

And sorry, I still can't give that first fight to Ward. There is no way Ward deserved to take the title on that performance.

 

Totes disagree, Ward finished very strongly with brutal body work and earnt it for me, then settled matters in the rematch.

 

No round, either earlier or later, is worth more than another round. Ward made an adjustment and went to his Plan B, which was more effective than his Plan A, but Kova's Plan A was still more effective that Ward's improved Plan B in my opinion. The judges seemed to reward Ward for doing better, tho not necessarily winning, in the later rounds. Kova stuck to his initial tactics and style because he didn't need to change.

I agree with Merchant, Lederman, The Guardian, ESPN, Thomas Hauser and plenty of others. Kova won that fight. And Ward certainly didn't do enough to take the championship.

 

No round is worth more than another round, but winning 7 rounds is worth more than winning 5.

Appealing to the majority doesn't really interest me, I'm just not passionate about scoring fights any more.

I felt it could have gone to either man and I've no problem with the decision.

I'm that apathetic about controversial decisions now that the Chavez draw vs Whitaker no longer bothers me neither. I only mention that because I know it's a fight where you don't conform to the majority opinion.

As I said before, any questions left remaining from the first were efficiently answered in the second imo so I do think Ward proved he is the better fighter than Kov.

 

Just curious—did you score the first fight round by round? I did when I get as watching it and I didn’t see more than 5 rounds to give to Ward. Kovalev’s bitter ex-trainers all claim that he undertrained for the rematch, for whatever that’s worth.

In any event, whatever problems he had with Ward, I think that Kovalev might beat plenty of Great light heavies who don’t have Ward’s smarts or defensive acumen.

 

I watched the fight and felt it was quite an even fight but Ward was slightly better. It's not an opinion I'm particularly passionate about. I'm more bothered about the performance of a fighter than the tally of a scorecard.

Whether he was under trained or not, he had the opportunity to beat Ward and failed to take it, twice.

I did also believe he was a great talent. The lowest ranked ATG LHW I have is Conteh. Do I favour Kov over Conteh, I'm not so sure. Haven't given it a huge amount of thought.

 

Kovalev quite frankly showed me a type of frailty in losing to Ward the second time that, for me personally, showed me that he wouldn't be able to take the heat light heavyweights like Yaqui Lopez were capable of bringing into the ring. He simply isn't a fighter that can give it and take it in equal measures.

He can punch, I have no doubt about that. Kovalev has great offensive ability and it's great made him one of the best light heavyweights in the world. But he also showed he can't take mild pressure from a light hitting super middleweight, skilled however he may be. That's unbelievably telling.

Pick a 70's light heavyweight title fight at random, from when the division was truly red hot, and compare the type of damage that the likes of Marvin Johnson, Saad Muhammed, Victor Galindez, and Yaqui Lopez would give and take to the body and head before wilting is relatively incredible. EVERYBODY back in the 70's would dig to your body.

I personally think, in a 15 rounder, Yaqui Lopez takes at least 6 out of 10 contests against Kovalev. His exceptional body punching, durability, and great engine along with a more than respectable punch are a nightmare match-up for Kovalev. I truly do not believe that Kovalev would prosper or be able to hang tough like I've seen Lopez do a half dozen times already.

 

Boxing is not a “hanging tough” competition though. Kovalev isn’t going to go toe to toe and slug it out with Lopez, Marvin Johnson, or Saad Muhammad—he’s gonna use footwork, his power jab, and some hard 1-2s to do his work from his preferred range. He’d probably win some and lose some, but I think he’d have a much harder time against a peak Eddie Mustapha than against some of those offense-oriented action fighters.

 

Durability and stamina are a huge part of boxing, and I think Kovalev has shown glaring weaknesses regarding both.

You can imagine Kovalev neatly out boxing whatever fighter you'd like, but the fact is that when matched with another world class fighter there's the chance that an actual fight is going to break out. Exactly what happened in Kovalev/Ward II.

 

27 of Kova's 31 opponents had durability problems when standing in front of him. And even Ward tasted the canvas and was forced into stinker mode under his offense. I would worry more about the durability of his opponents.

 

I think Hank is being underrated, Dick Tiger was also very inconsistent in his prime but people don't view him as a journeyman type even though he was nearly as inconsistent as Tiger. If Hank's losses disqualify him from being good/great than no doubt the same is true of Tiger.

 

Far from being inconsistent, Tiger was the opposite, by fighting the best of his time. Once he started campaigning in America he did officially drop a few decisions, but they were either toss of a coin split losses or highly controversial. Remember, he always struggled making weight and was in his 30's when he arrived. Winning the middleweight title from Fullmer came only after a rigorous campaign against all comers. Griffith, deserved the 15 round decision when he took the African's title, but no disgrace losing to an all time great. Tiger went onto win the undisputed lightheavyweight title at an advanced age, also beating middleweight champ Benvenuti. Do some research and you will discover how great Tiger was. Later, lauded middle' champs Monzon and Hagler, though bigger than Tiger, never attempted a charge at the heavier division like Tiger did. It says volumes for his ability that he scored such a resounding win over Henry Hank. See my previous post on this thread for my points on Hank who was a terrific, well respected boxer.

 

Even if Ward won 7 to 5 rounds (which he didn't), it's a draw with the KD. And where I come from, you have to take the title.

The first and the second fight are two different fights. In the first, Kova was jobbed of a great performance by homecooking. I don't know what happened in the second. If you believe reports, he didn't train hard and he partied hard and he was disillusioned with the sport. Hell, that's an argument people use with Jack Johnson's crappier performances, so I take it to be good for Kova.

 

This is an interesting post, that is worth some discussion, I think.

What exactly is a legendary fighter? Is it only guys like Sullivan, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Ali, Tyson, etc.? You know, boxers whose names will at least ring a bell, even to most non-fans?

Or do we also include fighters from the past, that may not be all that recognizable to everybody, but who in the boxing community are seen as special/greats in their own time... like Gans, Langford, Ketchel, Greb, Armstrong, Pep, etc.?

And what about someone like Ezzard Charles? Few thought much of him when he was champion, or in the decades that followed - but today most historians rate him very highly (All-Time Top-10 p4p, in many cases). So do we consider him a "legend"?

As for there being very few legends from the last 30+ years... well, don't legends need time to "grow"? I mean, there's no way of knowing, how boxing aficionados will look at this era - say in 70-80 years time (if there's still boxing by then!). Maybe they will look at the present as a shi**y time, where pampered sissies were allowed to win so-called "world titles". Or maybe they will be longing back to that "Golden Age" at the start of the century... when there were REAL fighters! We can't know - only time will tell.

 

No it's a 1 point win for Ward. I don't buy into taking the title, you just have to win more rounds than the champ.

They are different fights but between them Wars proved his superiority to me.

Whatever Kovalev did he has the same chance to prepare as Ward did so it's not really an excuse that washes.