Kovalev says he was sick during training camp

By Boxing News - 07/12/2016 - Comments

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By Jim Dower: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) got the victory last Monday night over his opponent Isaac Chilemba (24-4-2, 10 KOs) in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision. However, it wasn’t as convincing as many boxing fans had hoped it to be.

This was supposed to have been a tune-up fight to get Kovalev ready for a much more difficult task of facing unbeaten Andre Ward on November 19. Perhaps one reason why Kovalev wasn’t as effective as many had hoped him to be was because he was ill during training camp for the Chilemba fight. Kovalev said he had a cold. Just how much this could have affected him for the fight against Chilemba last night is unknown.

Kovalev beat Chilemba by the scores of Kovalev (117-110, 116-111, 118-109).

“There were obviously some moments during the training with regards to my health, because I got a cold and I didn’t say anything, so the information wouldn’t get to Chilemba, that it might work against me,” said Chilemba. ”So myself and my trainer worked hard to overcome this stage and prepared for the fight.”

Some boxing fans are going to read this from Kovalev about his illness and see it as an excuse for his less than stellar performance. You don’t like to hear fighters start with excuses after they fail to life up to their previous efforts. Hopefully this isn’t going to be the case after Kovalev fights Ward next November, because it would be bad if that’s what he’s reduced to if he winds up losing to the 31-year-old Ward.

If Kovalev wasn’t at 100 percent against Chilemba, then that might explain why he didn’t put in the kind of pereformance that he needed to for the boxing world to give him a good chance at beating the 31-year-old Ward on November 19. Based on how Kovalev looked in that fight, you can’t really say that he will beat Ward, because he’s a much better fighter than Chilemba. The things that Kovalev was getting away with against Chilemba last night, he wouldn’t be able to do the same thing against Ward.

Rather than talking about his illness, Kovalev should have given Chilemba credit for being good enough to make him look bad at times. Kovalev can’t run over everyone in the sport. A lot of the fighters that Kovalev had faced previously in his career were less talented guys than Chilemba. Certainly this was the best defensive fighter that Kovalev had ever faced before in his career. Chilemba may not have had the best offensive skills that Kovalev has been in with, but he might have been the best defensive guy.

To be sure, Kovalev fought Bernard Hopkins in 2014, but this was a 50-year-old Hopkins. You can’t compare Hopkins at that age to a younger fighter like 29-year-old Chilemba. I thought Chilemba was a better fighter last night than what we saw from Hopkins against Kovalev two years ago.

Kovalev’s jab was the best thing he had going against Chilemba. His jab was very good, and constantly found the mark in that fight. It wasn’t nearly as easy for Kovalev to land his right hand and left hooks, because he was missing on those shots quite frequently.

Kovalev was also getting hit on numerous occasions when he would try and unload with his power shots. It looked to me like Kovalev didn’t feel confident that he could land his shots without getting hit by Chiemba’s jabs and quick right hands. This had an effect of Kovalev not throwing nearly as many punches as he normally does.

I don’t think Kovalev will beat Ward. I just want to get that out there. Ward would have embarrassed Kovalev tonight. Whether Kovalev had the perfect training camp with no illnesses or injuries, I doubt that it would matter against a fighter like Ward. He would take Kovalev to school and have him so tied in knots that he would’t be able ot get his shots off. I think Kovalev would be afraid to throw punches at a certain point against a fighter in the class of Ward. Hopefully, Kovalev will give it his best shot against Ward next November, but I don’t give him more than a puncher’s chance to win.