Andre Ward undecided on Kovalev rematch

By Boxing News - 01/04/2017 - Comments

Image: Andre Ward undecided on Kovalev rematch

By Allan Fox: Now that Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) has beaten Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) to win his IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titles, he isn’t sure whether he’ll return to the ring for the rematch. Ward isn’t sure whether there’s any point in facing Kovalev again. He says if he did fight him again, it would be to prove to Kovalev and his team members that he could beat him again.

A lot of fans think Ward is running from Kovalev, and wants no part of having to fight him again and possibly losing. The fans think that Ward is afraid of the adjustments that Kovalev will make for the rematch, because he’ll surely be ready for the inside holding and wrestling that Ward will likely use in the rematch.

You can argue that the smothering from Ward was the biggest part of what kept him from being knocked out by Kovalev. Without Ward being able to tie up Kovalev for long periods of time, he might have been in trouble against him.

Ward, 32, says he no longer needs the money. That element isn’t there. Ward barely beat Kovalev last November in winning a 12 round unanimous decision with three judges scoring it identically by the scores 114-113, 114-113, and 114-113. Ward doesn’t like that some boxing fans are calling it a robbery, because he feels he won the fight clearly in his mind. A lot of the fans saw it differently. They saw Ward doing a lot of holding and mauling to keep Kovalev from throwing punches. They saw the referee standing around and doing nothing to address what was supposed to be a boxing match, what turned out to be a standup wrestling match.

If Ward retires now without facing Kovalev a second time, he’d be walking away from a big payday. He’d also be ending his career without facing Artur Beterbiev, a fighter that many boxing fans feel would have Ward’s number due to his incredible inside fighting skills. Beterbiev would be a very tough fight for Ward if he were to continue his career, because fighting the Russian guy on the inside might prove impossible.

Ward said this to the rollingstone.com about his boxing career:

“I’ve got to make some tough decisions over the next couple of months,” said Ward. “Boxing isn’t a sport to play with. I’ve obviously been doing this for a long time and it just has to make sense. We’ll make the right decision. I really just got to take my time right now because I really don’t have to fight anymore. I’ve accomplished pretty much everything that I’ve wanted to accomplish. It’s not about the money anymore.”

It would be Ward’s loss if he walked away from the rematch with Kovalev without proving himself as the better fighter, because in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans, he lost to the Russian fighter on November 19 last year in their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Ward doesn’t want to prove himself as the better fighter, then he wouldn’t be able to prove that he was the better fighter. He wouldn’t be able to shut his doubters up and to quiet Kovalev and his team.

The 175lb division will be just fine without Ward. With talented fighters like Artur Beterbiev and Oleksandr Gvozdyk, the division will thrive without Ward. Those exciting fighters like to throw punches, and they don’t waste time with wrestling and spoiling. These are fan friendly fighters. If Ward wants to walk away from boxing, the 175lb division will be in great shape and will do well. Ward’s fight against Kovalev was really boring for a lot of fans due to all the holding that Ward was doing. It was entertaining compared to many of Kovalev’s past fights.

Ward did not look like the same fighter he once was in his last fight against Kovalev. The mobility was gone, hand speed gone as well, and all that was remaining was the jab and wrestling ability. Even the wrestling wasn’t at the level that we saw from Ward back in 2011, when he smothered Carl Froch’s offense by grappling with him for 12 rounds. Ward was able to wrestle Froch to the ropes at times. He couldn’t do that with Kovalev. Ward looked tired at times against Kovalev, and he didn’t look like the fresh fighter that he’d been in the past.

Ward just moved up to the 175lb division recently in 2015, and he’s only fought two light heavyweights in Sullivan Barrera and Kovalev. Ward’s other two fights in the division were against 34-year-old super middleweight Paul Smith and 39-year-old Alexander Brand. Ward hasn’t fought Beterbiev, Adonis Stevenson and Oleksandr Gvozdyk.

The things that Ward accomplished are largely in the distant past with him capturing the Super Six tournament in 2011. In that tournament, Ward beat well-known fighters Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham. Ward later beat Chad Dawson and Edwin Rodriguez. However, Ward’s boxing career slowed down dramatically after winning the tournament in 2011. He was no longer making news like he’d been doing before. It’s as if Ward was satisfied with what he had done in the tournament, and he did very little afterward with his pro career. Ward has fought just six times since 2011. That’s not a lot. When you have fighters like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fighting three times per year, and then you see a fighter like Ward fighting just six times in the last six years, it kind of makes you wonder whether he still has the drive to be in the sport.

“You have to entertain (a rematch), and I would love to put my stats on in such a way that there isn’t a conversation about who won and who lost,” Ward said. “Proving something to people is a tricky thing to get involved in. If we did the rematch it would be more just to silence Kovalev and silence his team and to just put a stamp on the rivalry we had. It would be more of a personal thing to me,” said Ward.

Some people think Ward is talking retirement because he wants his contract with Kovalev to be reworked and sweetened for the rematch. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I get the impression that Kovalev and his promoter Kathy Duva won’t bet Ward to not retire if he chooses to go that route. They’ll move on with their lives and fight the next available contender for one of Ward’s titles after he retires and vacates. It’s up to Ward to decide whether he has enough interest in boxing to go through another training camp to get ready for a second fight against Kovalev, which could prove to be even tougher than the first one.

Ward barely won the fight in the eyes of the three judges that worked the match. Kovalev felt he should have won by a 9 rounds to 3 score. This writer agrees with Kovalev. I had Kovalev winning 9 rounds to 3. I’ve been a big fan of Ward’s during his career, but I thought he only won 3 rounds against Kovalev. I thought the scoring was abysmal. As much as I would like to have given Ward the win, I can’t make a case for him having done so. Ward was knocked down in the 2nd round by Kovalev. From round three to the final twelfth round, Ward turned the fight into a wrestling match. The referee stood and watched, and looked like he was not having a good night in controlling anything.

Kovalev landed the harder shots in the fight, and he landed more shots. In the offense department, Kovalev was the winner of the fight. You don’t usually see the challenger getting decisions when they’ve landed fewer punches with less power than the champion. In this case, that’s what happened. Ward was outworked and out-landed by Kovalev, and yet he still won the fight.

A lot of fans are predicting that Ward will retire rather than face Kovalev a second time. Some fans also think that Ward will never fight the talented Artur Beterbiev. It would be nice if Ward proved the fans wrong by continuing to fight, and beating Kovalev without controversy and then facing Beterbiev. It would be nice, but it’s starting to sound like Ward will be choosing to retire. Some fans see Ward potentially retiring as a sign that he knows he lost the fight. By choosing to not face Kovalev again, he could avoid going out on a defeat.