By Dan Ambrose: Sergey Kovalev did what he had to do for him to keep hi IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight titles tonight in beating a game but limited power-wise Isaac Chiemba by a 12 round unanimous decision.
Kovalev started slow in the early rounds, but finally got his offense in gear in the 7th round when he put Chilemba down with a rocket right hand to the head. The challenger got back to his feet and took more abuse from Kovalev, but made it out of the round and survived the full 12 rounds.
The Kovalev vs. Chilemba fight took place at the DIVS Sports Palace in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
The final judges’ scores saw Kovalev win by the scores of 117-110, 116-111 and 118-109.
The 33-year-old Kovalev didn’t get comfortable until the midpoint in the fight, as Chilemba’s jab clearly bothered him.
Each time Kovalev would attempt to get in range to throw his power shots, Chilemba would upset his rhythm by hitting him with a jab. Kovalev looked like he hadn’t planned on having to deal with Chiemba’s jabs in the fight, as he tried to lean away from them but they were still connecting on a frequent basis.
Chilemba looked like the better technical fighter of the two, and the guy with the superior hand speed. That’s not good for Kovalev, because this was a tune-up fight to get him ready for a much better fighter in Andre Ward on November 19.
Kovalev’s management can’t be too happy about his performance tonight against Chilemba, because it showed that he’s not ready for the likes of Andre Ward by a long shot. Chilemba exposed Kovalev in a big way in this fight, and there aren’t going to be any more tune-up fights for him. Kovalev at least got a fighter that helped expose his weaknesses so that he can improve ahead of the Ward fight. I’m not sure that Kovalev can improve.
The flaws that Chilemba exposed in Kovalev’s game tonight were big ones that can’t be fixed. He’s just going to have to out there and do his best against Ward and hope that he doesn’t get schooled badly by him. A young Andre Ward would have had an easy time beating Kovalev tonight. It’s unclear whether the current version of Ward can still do the job on Kovalev. It’s possible, but there’s also a possibility that Ward has lost enough from his game due to age and inactivity that he could be vulnerable to Kovalev.
In seeing how Kovalev fought tonight, I think there’s an excellent chance that he loses to Ward on November 19th.
Kovalev did take the fight to Chilemba from the 1st round. The problem that Kovalev had was his lack of hand speed, and excruciatingly slow attacking style. It’s not enough to just attack your opponents. If you’re a slow fighter like Kovalev, then you need to make up for your lack of hand speed by going on the attack and not letting up. Kovalev was fighting too much of a cautionary manner, and this enabled Chilemba to land a lot of shots and take advantage of his superior hand speed.
Chilemba did a good job of expertly clinching Kovalev to keep him from getting his shots off at times. Chilemba would tie him up to keep him from throwing his shots, and this enabled him to minimize what Kovalev was capable of doing to him with his superior power.