Kovalev / Ward round 3 only

Wards fans will get all defensive like you get with Joe

In 3 2 1
But I agree with your point above

 

I agree if you watched that round on its own its clear Kovalev won. Most people watching the fight live thought that Ward was going to get knocked out pretty sharpish going into round 3 given what had just happened in the previous round, and because he didn't, or even really get too hurt in that round a lot of people imagined he did better than he did.

 

Let's see, the round opened up with Ward clinching twice. The second time he managed to land a punch before he held him which turned into more of a tackle. After that Ward throws a few jabs, nothing significant but Kov does the same and hurts Ward making him cover up in a defensive shell and then hold. They clinch and Ward lands a hook, but it wasn't as effective as what Kov had just done. At this point we're a minute in and Kov has been winning this round by being the aggressor and more effective with his punches.

Kovalev is constantly backing Ward up. Ward does land a jab in some instances, but it doesn't seem to trouble Kov that much. In the clinch Ward does manage to land a few shots. Even with that in consideration I feel like he's losing this round so far. Now we have a minute left in the round.

Ward lands a decent jab, his best punch so far in the round but again it doesn't seem to trouble Kov much but the crowd enjoyed it. That could definitely sway the opinion of someone watching. It snapped Kov's head back for a moment but I do feel that Kovalev managed to hurt him more in the earlier portion of the round. Ward tried to jump in with his head quite a bit at the end, but Kovalev managed to block the headbutt. Kovalev missed a fair bit of his punches towards the end.

Okay so, if you watch the round and look at Kovalev missing and think that Ward's jab is the most telling punch of the round, which is easy to do since it got the most reaction, I could see how you would favor Ward in this round despite Kov having the more effective punches and maintaining ring generalship. I've seen some posters here praise Ward's clinches because they limited what Kov could do, but honestly I think that is stupid but it is an argument I've heard.

 

Ward nicked it

 

Oh no it shouldn't be taken into consideration at all. Crowd reaction means nothing. I'm just saying I could understand how a person could be swayed by it.

And yes, there are some people that wanted Ward to win or rather had an idea already set in their mind how this fight should go so they took any possible thing they could to fit it into that mold. For this fight tons of people were saying that Kov has 0 chance to ever outbox Ward and he would have to turn it into an ugly brawl and overpower him. That didn't happen.

 

There were a few rounds that could have went either way but it seems those that had Ward winning the fight gave him all those rounds.

 

It was Kovalev controlling early, but he didn't land much of consequence in the second half. That allowed Ward to work his way into the round after landing jabs on two separate occasions that stopped Kov in his tracks and snapped his head back. Ward also began to connect to the body in the second part of the round and began to engage on terms that were agreeable to him in the final minute.

You certainly could give it to Kov, but Ward certainly enjoyed a better second half of the round than Kov did.

 

Yup this is quite a telling round, the fact that Ward was still standing at the end of it seemed to be enough for some posters to give him the round. I too give him credit after what happened in round 2, but that doesn't mean he won the round. Kovalev ticks all the boxes for a winning round. He lands more, harder and is on the offense.