By Dan Ambrose: Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KO) dethroned IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) last Saturday night in beating him by a close 12 round unanimous decision in their fight for the No.1 pound-for-pound match. Ring Magazine is expected to install the 32-year-old Ward as the No.1 fighter in their pound for pound rankings in replacing unbeaten WBA World super flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (46-0, 38 KOs) for the top spot. However, you can make a very strong argument that Ward’s highly questionable 12 round decision win over Kovalev wasn’t much of win.
In fact, it’s seen largely by overall world boxing population as a loss for Ward. The judges scored the fight 114-113 x 3 for Ward. The scores were questionable, as two of the judges had Kovalev losing every round from the 7th.
I don’t think the 32-year-old Ward did enough to take the top pound for pound spot from Roman Gonzalez. I don’t think any change should be made at all in the ratings for pound for pound. If Ward had looked good and won a NON-CONTROVERSIAL decision, then maybe he would rate being moved up one spot from No.4 to No.3 in the ratings, but he did not win the fight last night in the minds of many fans. For that reason, I feel that the pound for pound ratings should remain frozen until Ward can prove that he can actually beat Kovalev in the minds of the overall fans, and not just in the minds of three judges. When you have three people making an important decision, you sometimes get odd results, which is what we saw last Saturday with the Kovalev-Ward fight.
Here are the Ring pound for pound ratings:
1. Roman Gonzalez
2. Sergey Kovalev
3. Gennady Golovkin
4. Andre Ward
5. Terence Crawford
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
7. Vasyl Lomachenko
8. Saul Canelo Alvarez
9. Shinsuke Yamanaka
10. Carl Frampton
If you saw the 12th, which appeared to be a clear round for Kovalev, it makes you question the quality of judging from last night’s fight. It appeared poor in the minds of many boxing fans. The main thing is Ward’s performance was NOT GOOD ENOUGH for him to take the #1 pound-for-pound spot from Gonzalez, who is a much more exciting fighter than what we saw from Ward last night.
Gonzalez looked superb in his last fight in moving up to super flyweight to defeat the bigger Carlos Cuadras (35-1-1, 27 KOs) by an exciting 12 round decision in an action-packed fight from start to finish last September. Gonzalez wasn’t holding on and wrestling like we saw from Ward last night against Kovalev. Gonzalez was always busy in the Cuadras fight with his attacking style.
Ward’s performance against Kovalev was not the type of boxing exhibition that you like to see from a perspective No.1 pound for pound fighter. If I was to grade Ward’s efforts against Kovalev, I would have to give him a C minus. It was not boxing. It was more of Ward winning by using tricks to keep Kovalev from fighting by the use of the clinch and mauling on the inside. For the boxing fans that said that Ward showed good boxing skills on the inside last night, I didn’t see what they were talking about.
The only thing Ward did was hold. Kovalev kept Ward from getting his shots off, and it was just two guys holding, but the holding was initiated by Ward. If Ward’s fans want to install him as the No.1 pound for pound in their own subjective list as the top fighter in boxing, then they should feel free to do that. But if Ring Magazine is going to elevate Ward to the No.1 pound for pound fighter in the sport after his win over Kovalev, then that’s bad. I don’t think Ward fought well enough to earn the No.1 spot in the pound for pound ratings.
We’re going to have to wait and see what happens with the pound for pound ratings concerning Ward’s win over Kovalev. This fight was supposed to have determined the No.1 fighter in boxing, but I think the outcome was too controversial for Ward to have earned the top spot.
Former world champion Roy Jones Jr. feels that Ward and Kovalev need to face each other a second time before they determine who the No.1 pound for pound fighter is in boxing. However, many would disagree with Jones Jr., as they feel that Kovalev already proved himself as the better fighter than Ward with his performance last Saturday night. Obviously, Ring Magazine isn’t going to give Kovalev the top spot off of his questionable loss to Ward.
A move like that would completely invalidate the three judges’ controversial decision win for Ward over Kovalev, making it seem like the win was not a win. There are already a lot of fans seeing it that way though. They just see it as three guys giving Ward a win, but it not meaning that he actually won the fight. It was just three guys making their pick, whereas a huge amount of boxing fans made their own choice to invalidate the three judges’ decision. In other words, Kovalev won the fight by the mass opinion, which overruled the three guys that scored the fight in Ward’s favor.
“It’s hard for me to call myself great,” Ward said after his fight with Kovalev. “At the end of the day, I am a two-weight division champion.”
Ward definitely was not great last night. He was far from great. It was not the type of performance you want to see from fighters that are fighting for the No.1 pound for pound position.
Ward is now a two-weight champion in name only, but he’s not an accepted one in the minds of a lot of the fans. Further, Ward isn’t see as the No.1 pound for pound guy. Roman Gonzalez looked a lot better in his big fight against Cuadras than what we saw from Ward last night.
It’s unclear why the Kovalev vs. Ward fight was labeled as a fight for the No.1 pound for pound spot. Usually you don’t get movement like that unless the top fighter has either retired or been beaten.
Gonzalez is still undefeated, and he’s coming off the biggest win of his career in moving up in weight to fight the bigger, stronger Cuadras. I don’t understand what Gonzalez did in that fight for him to be replaced by Ward. If boxing is going to change the No1 pound for pound spot for every big fight that takes place, then the position will lose it’s meaning. It will be seen as just a marketing point to draw interest from the fans rather than a spot that has the best fighter in the sport occupying the top spot.
“I always want to give the fans a good show,” said Ward after the fight.
It wasn’t a great show from Ward. If he wanted to give the fans a great show, he could have held a lot less, and stayed in the pocket a lot more during the last 10 rounds of the fight. Ward’s movement made the fight boring, as did his wrestling and holding. That was not entertaining stuff from Ward, and definitely not the kind of fighting you see from a pound for pound top fighter.