By Allan Fox: With Andre Ward now holding the IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titles, he now has leverage in the negotiations with Sergey Kovalev for a rematch between them in 2017, according to Ward’s promoter Michael Yormark of Roc Nation Sports. Just how much of the fight needs to be negotiated is the big question. Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva said previously that the figures for the rematch were already in the original contract.
However, it doesn’t seem like that’s the reality, according to Yormark. That’s not good news for Kovalev and Duva. If Ward’s promoters are going to push to get a big slice of the revenue in their favor, it’s going to make it difficult to get the rematch made.
That’s if Ward even continues his boxing career, because he’s been talking about possibly retiring from the sport if the rematch doesn’t make business sense to him.
“When you have the champ and you have the three belts, it does provide you with some leverage,” Yormark said to RingTV.com. “But we’re not there yet. And we haven’t had any conversations. It’s something that we’ll start focusing on.”
Ward’s win over Kovalev was a controversial 12 round unanimous decision by the identical scores of 114-113 x 3. The judges gave the champion Kovalev very little credit for doing anything in the second half of the fight with Ward. It’s almost unheard of for the champion to be not given rounds when they’re close rounds like many of the rounds were in the second half of the fight.
All the close rounds went to Ward, the American fighter against the fighter from Russia. Kovalev felt that the decision was politicized one. The crowd appeared to be on Ward’s side the moment he walked into the ring. One got the sense from watching the two fighters walk into the ring that Kovalev was going to have a potential problem winning rounds.
While the pro-Ward crowd cheered loudly for him throughout the fight, Kovalev didn’t get the same reaction for a lot of the positive things he did in the fight. Whether the judges were unconsciously influenced by the cheering from the pro-Ward crowd is unclear. What’s hard to understand is why so many boxing fans that saw the fight weren’t influenced by the cheering from the crowd for Ward. These fans felt that Kovalev clearly won the fight. They’re not professional judges like the three judges that worked the fight on November 19 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight was televised on HBO PPV, and the HBO’s unofficial scorer Harold Lederman had Kovalev winning the fight by the scores 116-111.
Lederman said this after the fight: “I had it eight rounds to 4, Sergey Kovalev. I just said to myself at the ends of these rounds, ‘who did more damage,’ and I really believe Sergey Kovalev, being the bigger puncher, won most of the rounds. Andre was really good down the stretch. He landed a lot of good body shots, but I feel he was out-punched in this fight,” said Lederman.
A lot of boxing fans agreed with Lederman. They felt that Kovalev landed the better shots throughout the fight, and did enough to hold onto his IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titles.
Kovalev out-landed Ward in the fight, both in overall punches and in power shots. Kovalev landed 126 of 474 punches for a connect percentage of 27. Ward landed 116 of 338 for a connect percentage of 24. Kovalev had a power connect percentage of 78 of 232 for 34%. Ward landed 61 of 170 for a 36% power connects percentage.
It looked like the judges gave Kovalev very little credit for what he was doing in the second half of the fight. Their scoring reflected that, as they gave Ward most of the rounds despite him doing a great of holding. The referee worked the fight did zero to stop the holding. The fight was little more than a stand up wrestling match in the second half of the contest. It was not interesting to watch compared to the first half of the fight, which had less wrestling and more actual fighting.
It’s still up in the air whether there will be a rematch between Ward and Kovalev. Ward has sounded recently like he’s ambivalent about a second fight against Kovalev. Whether he’s serious about not being decided or not is hard to know. Ward can get another good payday by fighting Kovalev again. It might not do a lot more PPV buys than the 160,000 it brought in on HBO PPV, but it’s possible that it bring in more. If they market the fight in a big way, the fight could bring in good numbers.
Some boxing fans see the rematch being the same as the first fight with Ward choosing to grapple with Kovalev from the early rounds and sticking with that type of fight for the full 12 rounds. A lot would depend on the referee works the fight. If it’s a referee that chooses to let the grappling occur for 12 rounds without doing anything about it, then it could be a very boring fight to watch unless you’re one of the boxing fans like to see a lot of wrestling in fights. I think most fans prefer to see action, which is why it’s important that a good referee be selected that makes sure that the fight is actual boxing match this time around rather than grappling affair that we saw the last time the two fighters faced each other.
What could hurt the fight from taking place is if it can’t be worked out in the negotiation phase. That would be a shame if the two fighters can’t work out a deal for a second fight, because there are still a lot of boxing fans that would like to see the two fighters face each other again, even though there’s a very good chance this could be another clinch-filled fight from start to finish like the last one.
If the purse split for the rematch is already in the original contract, then it might be a problem for Ward and his promoter to get those numbers reworked to be more favorable to him. Why would Kovalev and Duva want to change the contact if it’s already set for the rematch?