Just re-scored Kovalev vs Ward. 2nd scorecard comparison with 1st card

One other thing as regards the scoring of the bout.

As I said above that I think the range of scoring can go between "comfortable Kovalev win to narrower Ward win," you can deduce two things from the writers' scores for the fight and from the judges' scores for the fight.


* The writers/observers mostly had it correct

The "acceptable range" of scores favors Kovalev, and thus you had a higher percentage of writers giving the fight to Kovalev. This is not surprising. You can argue with the scores the writers got, but I think they pretty much came up with what you would think given the continuum of how this fight could have been scored. Maybe instead of 75/25 for Kovalev it's more like 66/33 Kovalev, but still I think that the writers/observers did a pretty good job


* Ward got pretty much the best judging he could get in the first fight

When Larry Merchant said after the fight that Ward got a "hometown" win and that Kovalev would have won by 9 points in Russia, I think he's mostly correct. With the point being that the 3 official judges gave Ward the majority of the close rounds on their cards. That doesn't mean Ward didn't "deserve" to win, it just means that Ward got about as much judging in his favor as you can expect to get. And that's why things like being in your hometown or home nation matters in boxing. Every little thing you can get in your favor counts.



Ward got to 114 points on all 3 cards (judges gave Ward 7 rounds), with my "reasonable maximum" being 115 points for him (judges give Ward 8 rounds). That's pretty darn good judging if you're a Ward fan.

I think there were like 4 people who got Ward to 116 points (Ward wins 9 rounds) in the like 60+ or so who were surveyed. One of them was Paulie Malinaggi (I think), and the other three I'd have to look at their names again. The only way I can think of getting Ward to 116 points would be if you gave him the 6th round. And to be fair to Ward, one of the official judges did award him Round 6.

Anyways, getting 114 points of a probable maximum of 115 points on all three cards is a pretty good job by the judges if you are on Team Ward.

 

Given the "acceptable" range of scores from which the judges could have scored the fight, I would agree that there was not a high probability that Ward would win on all 3 cards. I think you're right about that.

Just going off the official scorecards themselves, the judges pretty much banked 5 of the first 6 rounds for Kovalev (1,2,3,4,6). What that means is that Ward essentially had to run the table on those cards in the second half of the fight to eek out a 7-5 rounds win and a 1-point scoring win. And that's exactly what happened on two of the judges' cards, with two of them giving Ward rounds 7-12 and the other giving Ward 5 of the final 6 rounds.

As I said above, this was about as good of a judging outcome as Team Ward could have expected. I think the only other fair/possible score outcome in favor of Ward was 115-112 (rather than 114-113), and the judges were not going down that road after two of them gave Kovalev round 3.

Essentially, Ward pulled a straight flush down the stretch with the judges when that was exactly what he needed in order to win. Or to put it another way, Ward won in the only possible way he could have won.

It was not a robbery, but Ward got the most favorable outcome possible. I think that's fair to say.

 

Ward did do well in the 1st round, I agree. I think what hurt him was his reaction to that jab that Kovalev hit him with. Also, Kovalev did land more punches in the round via CompuBox. But I know what you are saying. Ward was pretty good in that round.