I scored the fight a draw. Kovalev disappointed me in his inability to finish Ward. The man slowed down to near a halt after rd 4 and practically gave it away. He should have turned up the heat on Ward in the rds immediately following the knockdown as Ward wasn't back in it until the 5th rd. I lol'd pretty hard whenever Ward tried showboating and Kovalev checked his ass with his jab.
Most rds after the 3rd or 4th were extremely close and could have gone either way depending on the judging.
I agree with everything here and had the same score. A couple notes: Just because Ward recovered and improved after the 2nd does not mean he actually won these subsequent rounds that were less of a landslide (3rd & 6th). Also, just because Ward was able to exhibit moments of his top level skillset, the stuff afficianados "ooh and ahh" over, does not mean he actually won the rounds where he did so, or that any of those rounds won by those skills was more important than the rounds Kov won with what some erroneously label his "basic" approach. In fact, the only round weighted more than the rest was the 2nd. In the end, it was a very close fight. It was a very entertaining fight, too, where both sides exhibited top level skills and talent. I would love to see another go around.
I saw a higher skilled opponent in Ward outsmart Kovalev to gain a narrow victory. The Russian tired down the stretch. Ward appeared in remarkable physical and mental shape. Wonderful boxing exhibition.
at this point ward is nothing but a slim guy who added mass to fight at lhw, his frame is slim and small, the guy has a lot of merit, ward would have exposed golovkin badly , ggg wad lucky that they never fought. kovalev is basically of the size of rocky marciano ,dempsey and patterson and he would get destroyed by all them.( btw before of somebody says that "patterson his chin blahblah" patterson probably would be the one who knocks him out fastest of the 3
Aside from the discussion about the decision, I must say that both men looked good last night. Kovalev proved he's more than just physicality and power, that he's also excellent at controlling range even against someone of Ward's calibre. Ward on his part, showed that his boxing brain and adaptability work under adversity also. He really showed steel to come back like he did.
For many, Kovalev's aggression seems to have weighed quite heavily, but how many have scored for defense? Kovalev scored 10 punches more but he also missed about 130 more. My feeling is that defense often gets lost as a scoring criteria. In fact, since guys like Lederman often scores for throwing punches even though they don't land, you could say defense gets penalized score wise. Lederman's, and many others', scoring for Toney-Jirov is a classic example of this.
Boxing is not scored on misses but hits, Ward lost this fight pretty convincingly if you know what you are looking at. he wasn't even the champion and got close rounds based on backing up and landing shots in a clinch which isn't really or shouldn't be scored b/c that's not the rules of boxing of holding and hitting. points are counted when fighters aren't tangled. either way he lost ,those that wish tio say Ward won need to realize the guy was out ringed in ring generalship/knocked down and was hit and rocked a few times some by jabs.
Imagine trying to figure out who won this if all we had were newspaper reports. It would cause 60 page threads, and would create enemies out of friends.
I had Kovalev by a point. There were some close rounds. I think judges should score even rounds more than they do. Ward did do better in the 2nd half of the fight but I don`t think he won those rounds that clear. Basically he got every close round where there wasn`t much to separate them.
If all we had were newspaper reports, readers would have thought it had been an incredible battle, with the two boxers throwing and landing thunderous blows with every punch, blood flying up into the bleachers, both fighters being helped to their corners between rounds while making Shakespearian level comments to each other. In other words, like a newspaper summary of a 1020's boxing match. Not believable and only for the sake of selling newspapers.
We would probably settle that Kovalev won being that it's 46-15 in favor of him with press row as of now