Kovalev: My right hand will do the job on Ward

By Boxing News - 11/16/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: In Sergey Kovalev’s mind, all he needs for him to beat contender Andre Ward (30-0, 15 KOs) on Saturday night is his right hand and little else. Kovalev wants to turn the fight into a street fight so that he can take advantage of his punching power. Kovalev does have the power advantage, but little else besides that.

Ward is the better fighter with the superior speed and experience against top rate opposition during his career.

The winner of the Ward-Kovalev fight will proudly be able to call themselves the No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in boxing. This fight is to determine that status. The winner might not stay at the No.1 spot for long though because there are some very good fighters out there like Roman Gonzalez that could take the top spot from them. There’s also Floyd Mayweather Jr. who would have to be considered for the No.1 spot if he comes back to boxing and beats Manny Pacquiao a second time.

Kovalev is too reliant on his right hand in his fights. I noticed that a long time ago. He goes right hand crazy when he fights. If you take away his right hand, Kovalev becomes helpless as a lamb. That’s what Ward is going to be doing this Saturday in their fight on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“My right hand will do the job that I need to do in this fight, I don’t really have any plans going into my fights – you never know what will happen,” said Kovalev to skysports.com.

If all Kovalev has in this fight is his right hand, then he’s going to be no match for Ward. He’s the better-rounded fighter of the two by far. Ward is able to use both hands, not just his right hand like Kovalev. Ward has a powerful left hook in his arsenal of punches that he’ll be looking to land to the head of Kovalev in this fight. Ward can’t miss with that punch, especially when he’s facing a slugger that is loading up on every punch they throw like Kovalev.

Kovalev is coming into this Saturday’s fight with Ward having beaten these guys in his last 10 fights:

Isaac Chilemba

Jean Pascal x 2

Nadjib Mohammedi

Bernard Hopkins

Blake Caparello

Cedric Agnew

Ismayl Sillakh

Nathan Cleverly

Cornelius White

This biggest hint that we can tell what’s going to happen in this Saturday’s Kovalev-Ward contest is how badly Kovalev struggled against Chilemba and Agnew. Kovalev had problems in both of those fights despite getting the win. Agnew fought with his back against the ropes and was able to pick Kovalev off with shot after shot. If not for Kovalev’s punching power, he might have lost the fight. It was the same thing with Kovalev’s fight against Chilemba. Kovalev was getting picked off by Cliemba’s shots in each round.

The only reason Kovalev won the fight was because Chilemba didn’t throw enough punches and didn’t have quite enough power to beat him. Some boxing fans see similarities in the fighting style of Chilemba and Ward. There are some, but Ward is vastly superior to Chilemba in every facet of his game. Ward is faster, stronger, more accurate and harder to hit than Chilemba. That’s not good news for Kovalev, because he had problems beating Chiemba.

Kovalev won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-111, 117-110 and 118-109. The more accurate score of those three was the 116-111 score. Kovalev won the fight, but not by much. Now if you figure that Ward is considerably better than Chilemba, it tells you that he’s going to beat Kovalev on Saturday. That’s just the basic math. Kovalev + Chilemba = Ward wins fight on November 19.

“For me, each fight is like a street fight as just like on the street you never really know what an opponent is going to do,” said Kovalev.

Kovalev, 33, may think it’s going to be a street fight on Saturday night, but Ward certainly doesn’t. He’s going to be using his boxing ability to box circles around Kovalev in this fight. If Kovalev thinks the fight is going to be a street fight, then I feel sorry for him, because it’s not going to be a street fight of anything close to that. It’s going to be a serious affair where he looks to use his ring expertise to get a win over the Russian fighter.

That’s just the way the fight is going to be. For Kovalev’s sake, I hope that he has some other plans besides just coming out and trying to make the fight a street fight for as long as it lasts. Kovalev’s problem is he’s never been inside the ring with anyone close to as good as Ward. Kovalev is coming into the fight blind. He’s under equipped for what he’s about to face.

Kovalev should have been picking the brains of the guys that Ward has beaten in the recent past so that he could find out as much as possible about what he’s going to be dealing with on Saturday night, because right now he’s just not prepared for this kind of fight. How come I know this? I know it because of Kovalev is talking about wanting to turn the fight into a street fight. If that’s Kovalev’s thoughts on how Saturday’s fight against Ward is going to go down, then he’s sadly mistaken.

Let me tell you, Kovalev is going to be in for a world of hurt if he tries to turn the fight against Ward into a street fight, because he’s not going to be able to do that. Ward has faced guys in the past that have tried to turn the fight with Ward into a street fight, and all of them were clowned badly. Ward didn’t let them do that to him. I’m talking about guys like Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler, Sullivan Barrera, Edwin Rodriguez and Alexander Brand. Those are all sluggers that tried to stop Ward, and in each case they were soundly beaten by him.