Kovalev is a very good and dangerous fighter, don't think he did anything wrong, just lost to the better fighter.
Someone forgot to clip the bull's horns, and the matador finally got gored. Kovalev is just that good. I really don't think Campillo did anything wrong, except maybe getting a year older.
Campillo has always been a slow starter, but Kovalev just made it worse. He's ridiculously dangerous. I really don't think I'd outright favor any of the 175 pounders over him.
He either was not ready to fight or showed his age. At the same time Kovalev was really impressive against a top LHW though.
Campillo supposedly had a bad training camp in Spain and didn't make it into the States until three days before the fight, due to visa issues.
He got beaten by an excellent fighter who punches like a demon. People are surprised by the result because they underestimated Kovalev, largely in part because they hadn't done their homework on him. Judging from many of the pre-fight opinions I saw on here from those who picked against him it seemed pretty clear to me they'd seen very little footage of him. I think they thought he was some unskilled, non-athletic plodder with nothing more than a big punch. That is clearly not the case to those of us who've watched more than a few minutes of him in action. I knew he was far too well-schooled, athletic, intelligent and had too much punch variety to be swiping at thin air all night. I also knew that when he did catch Campillo he had the power (in BOTH hands) to seriously hurt him too and that his high ring IQ, punch variety and finishing instincts would allow him to land the the follow up shots to get him out of there.
Yeah. He seems like a really nice guy too, as is Campillo. Both of them have had more than the fair share of bad luck: Kovelev with the Simakov tragedy, and Campillo with numerous robberies going against him.