It's a pickem for me Kovalev was no joke when prime and stopped some pretty durable fighters. Krushers best chance would be early doors the longer it goes I would lean with Artur. It would be a great scrap either way.
While there's all sort of technical analysis of this fight you can get into ,, this is the most accurate and simplest reason why Beterbiev would ko Kovalev,,,and badly.
Kovalev never had Beterbiev's discipline. Dude drank too much. He should have turned professional in 2004 and worked on his conditioning. In the second fight Ward had him gasping for air, Beterbiev might do worse. IMO Kovalev's lack of endurance is awful in a long fight, while Beterbiev's accumulative punches make late rounds a blow-out.
Beterbiev has beaten Kovalev twice in amateurs and he will beat him again. Beterbiev has more than ample firepower to handle Kovalev. Kovalev has no inside game and Beterbiev would have worn him down and KOed him in the late rounds. Prime or not, Kovalev does not respond well to pressure.
This comes down to 2 simple and related questions:- 1) Could Kov keep Artur on the end of his jab at range for a full 12 rounds - or even hurt/stop Artur? 2) Can Artur get inside Kovs jab and work the body and those concussive short blows to wear out Kov? Whilst Kov had an excellent jab and swas very heavy handed, it's hard to see how Artur doesn't manage to get some inside exchanges going, and that's where Sergey get's really punished, as was seen in later in career he was weaker to the body - no one earlier in his career had managed to withstand his heavy hands to get inside and find that out before Ward. So I would take Artur to maybe stop Kov on attrition and body around the 10th / 11th - maybe even having weathered a storm and touching the canvas.
Always saw that as the true 50/50 LHW fight of 2015/2016. Both prime, both with a history in the ams, both steamrolling the opposition.
Despite knowing what Kovalev has eventually become I still think that "prime on a tear" version of Kovalev beats Beterbiev.
Kovalev was very racist towards Beterbiev in the amateurs (Kovalev being Slavic Russian and Beterbiev being a Chechen born in Dagestan). Beterbiev already defeated Kovalev twice in the amateurs. Kovalev has no inside game and prone to body shots. Beterbiev is a wicked body puncher who devours people in the inside-mid range. Kovalev like Browne and Gvozdyk quits.
