Kovalev gases around the 9 rounds heavy on the attack after dropping Hopkins heavily in the 3rd but tries and tries to stop him. However Hopkins survives and start countering effectively busting up kovalev in process to get level on the cards around the 8th them systematically catches Sergey consistently. Opening up cuts. ref stops fight at end of 11th.Bernard unifies his titlewwith the WBO strap
Bernard wins the 1st round, then sergey kovalev finds his range and hits bernard to the body with gruelling hooks jabs and straight rights, he wont be head hunting early on. he puts hopkins down in the 4th round, hopkins is hurt but not near being stopped yet, Kovalev continues the assualt into rounds 5 and 6 and the tired hopkins with possibly broken ribs, tries to find a way out by continous holding and flopping to the floor in pain, hes getting hit with massive shots to the head now. but he makes it alive and returns to the corner at the end of round 6. The referee then walks over to Sergey Kovalev and raises his hand, he is the victor, hopkins has retired on the stool from the advice of naazim richardson, hopkins doesnt argue, he sees no way out alive. The new WBA,IBF,WBO Lightheavy weight champion of the world Sergey Kovalev.
i see bernard being able to KO kovalev although he didn't ko shumenov and cloud, etc...because kovalev has a suspect chin and he's very slow which makes him defensively porous...in addition, he's never been longer than 8 rounds...he's gonna hit the wall by round nine. kovalev gets pounded into submission late in the last round after taking a continuous beating in 9,10, 11 and 12
You assume he'll gas around the ninth why? Kovalev has never been into the ninth before, so there is no way of knowing what his stamina will be like that late. (unless you thought he looked gassed in the 7th against Cedric Agnew or Roman Simakov...or you've seen Kovalev vs. Boone I and thought he looked gassed in the seventh and eighth of that...)
the point is, if he's never been that late in a fight it's gonna be a big adjustment for him in terms of the demands on his conditioning...it will affect him. if he's a guy who has naturally great stamina, then maybe not so much. but if he's just your typical guy who has to build up the conditioning for longer fights he's gonna feel every punch he takes after the 9th round...kovalev is younger than hopkins, but he's no 22 year old either.
