By Allan Fox: Andre “SOG” Ward and Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev met with the media on Wednesday for the final day of their 3-day press tour in Los Angeles, California to talk about “The Rematch” on June 17th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Unfortunately, both fighters said pretty much the same things that they said in the 2 previous tour dates in New York and Oakland, California.
We heard Kovalev repeat that he’ll finishing Ward’s career. We got to see Ward talk him not buying Kovalev’s care tactics. It’s clear that both fighters are attempting to intimidate each other with bold talk, so Ward needs to get off his high horse and look himself in the mirror because he’s doing the same thing Kovalev is doing.
One thing that I noticed today was the anger in Kovalev’s face when he turned around told Ward that he’s got end his boxing career. This wasn’t theatrics on Kovalev’s part. He seems to really mean what he’s saying. Ward better be on his guard on June 17th because he’s going to be getting hit hard in that fight.
Ward obviously will employ the same smothering tactics he used in the first fight, which means that Kovalev will need to knock him out with short punches while being held on the inside. That’s not easy to do. Kovalev hasn’t shown that he’s able to fight inside like light heavyweight knockout artist Artur Beterbiev. He would probably be quite happy if Ward chose to hold him all night because he’s so good at working a hand free and blasting his opponents.
“You got a lot of misinformation coming from that side,” said Ward about Kovalev’s team. “You get a lot of that coming from that side. A lot of old school tactics. It’s 2017, all that old school tactics that his side is trying to trying to do, it’s not going to work. You’re selling fear; we’re not buying. It’s not going to work. At the end of the day, you’ve got to see me on June 17th,” said Ward.
The way Ward is talking about Kovalev’s intimidation tactics, it must mean that it bothers him. If it didn’t, then he wouldn’t be meaning it. Ward should ignore all that stuff, because he was doing the same thing when he was staring Kovalev down during the face off. When Kovalev would turn away to look at the audience, Ward continued to stare him in what was clearly an attempt to intimidate him. I’m not sure that Ward realizes what he is doing is just more useless intimidation stuff. It might help interest the boxing fans to see Ward and Kovalev go back and forth with their attempts to scare each other, but it probably won’t mean much in the actual fight unless it’s decided in the first few rounds.
“I didn’t have to fight you again,” said Ward. “I don’t care what you say, I don’t care where you from, I don’t care how you came up; don’t matter, Bro. You have to see me June 17th. It’s destiny. This fight, I didn’t have to take this fight. This fight is for you and the fans, and for the boxing community. This is the fight that everybody is clamoring about. At the end of the day, where I come from, it’s about showing up. You watch my career. We don’t say nothing. We just go out and get it done. On June 17th, it’s going to be a definite reality check,” said Ward.
Ward had to take the fight with Kovalev if he wanted to continue fighting. There was a rematch clause in the contract. There was no getting around that for Ward unless he chose to retire from boxing. That would have made him look really bad like he didn’t want to face Kovalev a second time. Ward isn’t fighting Kovalev a second time just to be generous to him. There’s clearly unfinished business for Ward from his last fight against Kovalev because many people in boxing think he was given a gift decision by the 3 judges.
It was a pro-Ward crowd that he fought in front of in the previous fight. It looked bad for Kovalev the moment he walked into the arena and was loudly booed by the fans. Then to top it off, Kovalev lost the fight despite knocking Ward down in the 2nd round. If Ward felt like he could live with the results of their previous fight, then maybe he should have retired and then he wouldn’t have had to fight Kovalev a second time.
“I came from nothing,” said Kovalev. “I believe in myself. I will get my belts back on June 17th. I will finish your boxing career,” said Kovalev.
Let’s be clear on this. Ward will not retire if he loses to Kovalev. Ward would likely be looking to retool his game by Kovalev, and then come back and try and avenge the loss. Where it could be a problem for Ward to try and beat Kovalev in a trilogy fight is if he loses to him on the inside.
If Kovalev is able to land his huge punches on the inside to knock Ward out, then it’s going to be really hard for him to beat him in a rematch. Ward’s A in the hole last time was being able to tie Kovalev up and throw short punches on the inside. Ward wasn’t able to function on the outside no matter hard he tried the last time they fought. Kovalev was simply the better fighter from the outside. Ward would have no options for winning if Kovalev is able to dominate him in close. In a third fight, Ward wouldn’t be able to rely on using an outside game to beat Kovalev, because he’s not nearly as good as he is from the outside.
“You can’t sell no fear to us,” said Ward’s manager James Prince about Kovalev. “We’re not buying no fear about what you going to do, frowning at the top of your head. That don’t mean nothing to us. Your code has been cracked and we’re going to pick up where we left off,” said Prince.