Ward will comfortably beat Kovalev in the rematch

ha ha. Yeah I like the agressors.

You know, I did not listen to the commentary. I had the sound down. But I knew it was Sky because they flashed their banner at one point.

Cheers.

 

This is an interesting aspect of the fight. It seemed that Kovalev was the one doing the majority of the holding. Ward (as expected) showed himself to be far more elusive, and once Ward was able to get past Kovalev's jab, Kovalev couldn't stop Ward from getting inside and doing some serious body work. Before the fight, Kovalev expressed his concerns about Ward's fouling (possibly headbutts) but Kovalev seemed to be the one who did the majority of the holding and Kovalev had the low blow in the 12th. I recall Andre initiating an actual clinch early on in the fight, but as the fight wore on, Kovalev seemed bothered by Andre's ability to get inside and did a fair amount of holding and tying Ward up.

 

It could lead to a better fight, but it could also play into Andre's hands. An over-aggressive Kovalev could have him abandon his usual style and leave himself more open to counter punches from Ward and make it so that Ward doesn't have to be as aggressive as he was in this fight to win. To Kovalev's credit, he didn't seem to get rattled and stayed fairly patient and consistent. I don't think Kovalev has the style to really benefit from going balls to the wall. He's really an outside fighter who walks you down, he's not exactly a Mike Tyson style or even a Prime RJJ style who has the speed and punching variety to just overwhelm you with aggression. Ward is the far more dynamic fighter and has shown an ability to make adjustments during a fight that we haven't seen from Kovalev. That said, Kovalev really had Ward in trouble early, in a rematch it will be intereting to see what will happen if Kovalev doesn't have that kind of early success.

 

It was too close a fight to think Ward will have things all his way in the rematch. Even in the later rounds when Kovalev was clearly tired from the body shots he was competitive. The 9th was a very close round, I gave Kova the 10th round.

While Ward did seem to figure Kovalev's style out, it doesn't mean Kovalev won't come in with new strategies in the rematch to try and negate the clinching. Kova had a lot of success early because he used his left arm to push Ward's head down when he came in, preventing a clinch, but Ward started using more lateral movement, moving to his right to draw Kova to his left and so Ward would shift to his left and onto Kova's right side away from his left hand so he could come inside without having his head pushed down. Sergey needs another way to prevent Ward coming in.

One thing I'd like to see Kovalev do in the rematch which he didn't in this fight is go to the body. Where was his jab to the body, which in the past has been an effective punch for him. Also we saw Kovalev hurt Ward a bit to the body late in the fight, that's definitely an area where Kovalev could have more success which could see Ward be just as tired as him late in the fight. I wonder if the early knock down caused Kovalev to focus more on the head on the hope of ending it which resulted in him ignoring the body.

 

I disagree. I think the reason Ward had more success from rds 4-12 is because Kovalev was wearing out, so his power had a lot less affect. Kovalev's power was a HUGE factor in his success in the first 2 rds. If Kovalev can conserve his energy better he will always be dangerous to Ward. Remember a jab stunned Ward lol, a freaking jab did more damage to Ward than Ward's lefthook clean to Kovalev.

 

A fresh Kovalev with full energy is scary as hell. Before this fight I made a prediction that Ward was going to confuse the hell out of Kovalev and easily win, in a rematch this is actually a 50/50 to me now.

 

Way off. That was Ward AT HIS BEST.

More gears? Ward hasn't looked good in years. When will people see this? He looks NOTHING like the man that ran through the S6 gauntlet.

Kovalev is only getting better AND performs best against the best.