By Allan Fox: Light heavyweight world champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev doesn’t care challenger Andre Ward in what he thinks and how he’s going about his preparation for their fight on November 19 next month on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ward, 31, told the boxing media recently that he’s only see one of Kovalev’s past fights in seeing his rematch against Jean Pascal last January.
Kovalev won the fight by a 7th round stoppage in a one-sided contest. Kovalev’s response to learning that Ward had only seen one of his past fights was one of disinterest. Kovalev says he doesn’t care what Ward watches or what he thinks about as he gets prepared for their fight on November 19. Kovalev says he’s only thinking about his own training, and about winning the fight.
“I don’t think at all what Ward is doing, I don’t think,” Kovalev said to skysports.com. “I’m thinking only about me, what I’m going to do. I don’t care about what Andre Ward thinks. My goal is to get victory and not to think about what Andre Ward is watching or not watching, what he’s doing.”
Ward could be playing mind games by telling the boxing media that he’s only seen one of Kovalev’s fights in the past, because that’s something that’s just not smart. When you’re fighting someone, you’ve got to do research on them so that you can learn tendencies. If you don’t study you’re opponent, then you go into fights blind. That’s not good for Ward because he doesn’t have the punching power to stand and trade with Kovalev. If he’s not seen enough of Kovalev’s past fights to learn how he fights, then he could be in deep trouble on November 19 and wind up getting knocked out by him.
Ward has not looked like the Ward of old in his last three fights against Alexander Brand, Sullivan Barrera and Paul Smith. You can say that Ward looked bad in those fights because he was rusty from being out of the ring for two years. In fact, that’s what many of Ward’s fans are saying. However, when you compare how Ward has looked in those fights to how he fought in the Super Six tournament five years ago, he looks like a completely different fighter altogether. It only takes one second to figure out that Ward will never get back to the fighter he was in 2011. His problem isn’t much the ring rust of him being out of the ring. I believe it’s more related to Ward getting older with him now in his 30s. When Ward won the Super Six tournament in 2011, he was a young 25. You can’t expect a fighter in his 30s to be the same fighter he was when he was in his mid-20s. Things change.
“You can ask him about what he thinks that he watches only one of my fights. He can say that he saw only one fight, but he can watch all my fights,” said Kovalev about Ward. “I don’t know what he’s watching or I don’t care what he’s watching. My goal is to get victory and not to think about what Andre Ward is watching or not watching, what he’s doing.”
If Ward is going to try and get into the head of Kovalev, then he’s going to need to do a better job than that, because he’s not taking the right approach. It might be better for Ward to tell the boxing media that he’s going to knockout Kovalev. That might get a better reaction than telling the media that he’s only seen one of Kovalev’s past fights. That sounds like disinterest on the part of Ward, as if he’s trying to minimize the threat that comes from Kovalev.
On the flip-side, you can see it as a product of Ward simply not being involved in the sport as often as he should since winning the Super Six tournament in 2011. Ward has fought only five times since winning the Super Six tournament five years ago. That’s not good. Ward has been averaging one fight per year since 2011. With that kind of activity, it would be surprising if Ward saw much of anything boxing related. You can’t see that as a good thing. Ward should be watching as much as he can of Kovalev’s past fights so that he can make up for lost time. It’s already going to be bad for Ward in this fight because he doesn’t have the punching power or the work rate to match the offensive fire power that Kovalev has going for him. If Ward isn’t going to watch Kovalev’s last fights to try and get an edge against him, then he’s going to be walking into a potential trap on November 19. It could turn out to be a real slaughter with Kovalev destroying Ward and making it look easy. It’s going to be the equivalent of Ward firing single shot against a fighter that has a repeating rifle armament in Kovalev. That’s not good for Ward. Without the punch volume or the punching power, Ward is going to be really up against it in this fight when he gets inside the ring against Kovalev.
Can Ward change his game enough for him to beat Kovalev? I don’t think Ward is going to be able to increase his punching power for him to be able to get Kovalev’s respect in this fight. At this point in Ward’s career, he’s as strong as he’ll ever be, and he’s not suddenly going to get more powerful now that he’s fighting Kovalev. Ward is a pumped up super middleweight facing the biggest puncher in the 175lb division in Kovalev.
Since Ward can’t increase his punching power for the fight, then he’ll need to either attempt to increase his punch output or nullify Kovalev’s punch output. It’s doubtful that Ward will be able to throw more punches than he has in the past, he’s a sharp shooter and he doesn’t have the ability to throw a lot of shots without getting tired. So what we’re probably going to see in this fight is Ward going back to his Super Six tourney style of fighting by electing to hold a great deal to keep Kovalev from throwing punches. If the referee lets Ward clinch all night long, he might be able to greatly limit the punch output of Kovalev. It won’t be an interesting fight to watch for the boxing fans that will be paying to see it on HBO pay-per-view, but at least Ward will have a better chance of winning.
It would be better for the fans if Ward chooses to fight Kovalev rather than look to spoil for 12 rounds. We saw Ward do a great deal of holding in the finals of the Super Six tournament against Carl Froch. Even with all the holding and smothering that Ward did in the contest, he barely won the fight. If Ward is going to hold Kovalev all night long on November 19, then all you can do is hope that the referee does something to address this. It’s too big of a fight for it to be wrecked by 12 rounds of holding by Ward. He needs to prove that he’s the better fighter, not someone that has come up with a way around fighting by using holding.