Who beats Kovalev at 175?

The hype around this guy and GGG is so ridiculous is beyond belief. When the best name on either your resumes is a 50 yr old Hopkins you have a ridiculously paper thin resume. Dont come on here talking this all time great bull**** until the guy actually fights someone. Who have either of these guys actually ever fought?

 

If Kovalev wasn't a big puncher he wouldn't be anything special.He's a basic fundamentally competent boxer-puncher(reminds me of Michael Carbajal before he totally fell in love with his power) and slow of hand and reflex for the weight.Lacks the consistent great jab that you really want from a fighter of that style too.

Maybe he'll have more to him than meets the eye against the tepid opposition he's fought so far(like a Saad Muhammed, who actually had better skills than Kovalev when in boxing mode imo) but as of now he certainly doesn't grab me as an ATG talent.

 

If my aunt...

 

I'm talking in the context of people seeming to think he's some beastly all-rounder.

he's not.

He's a basic boxer-puncher elevated to being a dangerous, very good fighter because of his power.

 

Might sound crazy but he sort of reminds me of Gerald McClellan (except I think he's a better boxer than the G-Man and more patient).

 

Here's the situation. Kovalev is a fight away from unifying the belts. Stevenson wants no part of him.

Kovalev is an all time puncher at light heavyweight. No debating that. He's also a very good boxer with excellent timing. Kovalev can time and land on faster fighters. This make his hand speed which is neither good or bad much less of a handicap.

His chin seems at least solid. And he’s a gamer who’s not likely to have off nights. The Jack O Lantern grim Kovalev flashes when he knows the near adds to his charisma as a certified bad @ss in the ring.

Its not only who you have beaten its how easily you did it.

While Kovalev needs a few more fights ( Ward, or Stevenson ), I trust my eyes which has seen 100's of matches at light heavyweight. He's the real deal.

Bob Foster’s title matches at light heavyweight were nothing special either. I guess Kovalev just needs to win a few more to have the nay sayers go away.

 

Taller guys with power - like Bob Foster and Michael Spinks - would probably do very well. Kovalev can be hit flush. If you have one-punch KO power when you hit him, that would help a lot.

Shorter, grinder types, like Victor Galindez and Qawi, would probably have troubles.

It'll be interesting to see Kovalev against better guys in the near future.

 

I could see guys like Foster or Spinks beating him but those seem like pretty even matchups to me. And that puts Kovalev in very elite company.

 

For a three round blowout I thought Nadjib showed a few signs of frustrating Kovalev. Makes me think ward has a real shot. I didn't believe that before the bout. Kovalev is the goods. He has beaten a slew of "solid" fighters but he needs a Ward to really solidify his standing in historical matchups. I think Gonzalez would be another solid win for him and hope he fights him next followed up with Ward. Forget Stevenson he will never fight him.

 

That's also Bob Foster in a nutshell, which is one reason a fight between the two would've been incredible. Power like that lets you get away with alot that feather fisted fighters simply can't.

The biggest difference is we probably will never see Kovalev move up to Cruiserweight or Heavyweight where that game - changing power won't scale up at the same rate as his opponent's abilities to exploit his weaknesses and bad habits.

 

true to an extent in the sense that Bob's style would have been a lot less effective had he only had average or decent power, but Kovalev does not give me a Foster vibe in the slightest.

He doesn't hit as hard imo, but more importantly doesn't have near the same overbearing ranginess and general domineering physicality + style smartly built around taking advantage of it.

He's much more of a "standard" textbook boxer-puncher than a unique stylistic conundrum in the Foster or Spinks sense and often a fairly sloppy one at that.He's not fallen in love with his power, but he does takes a lot of liberties due to it that i'm not sure he'd have the overall attributes to get away with so well against better opposition.

He's not consistently sharp in his outside work-he could hardly be compared to an Arguello or Louis 95% flawless punches type as the consistently wrong Mendoza seems to think, nor is he a finesse laden precision punchpicker or outfighter + substantial power like Harold Johnson, Archie Moore or ultimately underachieving fighters like Gregory and Conteh imo, though on the plus side he doesn't seem overly predictable rhythmically so far, in the way someone like Tito became.But that might be a factor of his opposition, hard to say yet.

Overall i think he's a fine fighter, one of the better looking of recently hyped fighters and should be able to rack up plenty of defences without breaking much sweat against fighters like Pascal, cleverly, Caparello etc But i don't yet see the need to hype him as some atg destroyer.It'd be more interested in seeing if he can surpass his countrymen Tszyu and Arbachakov as the best recent Russian pro boxer-puncher, something i see as entirely still undecided.

Stevenson(though i don't really rate him as more than a dangerous limited puncher) Ward and Beterbiev(who also looks limited other than power) sometime down the road will be good fights, but with the way some like Mendoza are talking you think the guy had blown out a murderers row.

 

No,...he won every round on every score card vs Hopkins...if he was so ordinary, he would have been just another stiff, white designated loser to Bernard...you're wrong about the Russkii...I hope he utterly decimates the entire lightheavy division. Remember, he's a work in progress. Both you and klompton are wrong as **** about Kovalev and GGG.

 

Until Ward gets hit, that is...these ****in Russkii's don't play around.

 

I've never said anywhere he's ordinary.I actually think he's a very good fighter, already better than recent hype jobs like Taylor, Pavlik, Dawson etc ever were and better than often highly rated guys like Cotto ever were.

And i'm no fan of old Hopkins, anyone on here that's read my posts on him since at least the Calzaghe fight days would know i've said he's only hung around so long because the division has been weak, and were it populated with genuinely very good fighters he would be much less of a factor.So that a genuinely good lightheavy wins every round against an absolutely ancient version of him was hardly remarkable news to me.That is no notable win, simply doing what any good light heavy should against a by now limited and ancient spoiler.

I like GGG too.Don't think i've ever run him down either, my view on him is similar to my one on Kovalev.Some are really overhyping him and he hasn't beaten anyone that is more than serviceable as a fighter, but i've been impressed and enjoy watching him fight.

 

You make a lot of sense here and you're largely right in this post.