By Allan Fox: Andre Ward sounded as if he were gloating after the fight about beating IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev by a disputed 12 round unanimous decision in their fight on HBO pay-per-view. Ward said afterwards that he felt that Kovalev had no inside game. However, Ward did a lot of wrestling and was able to get away with tying Kovalev up for 12 rounds due to referee Robert Byrd playing no part in trying to control the holding/wrestling from Ward.
You can argue that the holding/wrestling was excessive, and Ward was able to get away with due Byrd choosing to take a laissez faire approach to controlling that part of the fight. Byrd left Kovalev out there on his own to deal with the wrestling. Kovalev had never faced an opponent that did that much holding, and he clearly wasn’t ready to deal with it.
The only thing Kovalev could do is make sure that Ward didn’t land shots. Ward pretty much didn’t land on the inside. What he did do was tire Kovalev out with the holding/wrestling. This could have been stopped early if Byrd had stepped in to penalize Ward for the holding, but like I said, he took a leave it alone approach to controlling that part of the fight.
Ward got the win last night in winning by the scores 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113. Two of the judges gave Ward the last round. That was the round in which Kovalev landed the bigger shots, and appeared to win it. Two of the judges disagreed. Kovalev wasn’t getting the benefit of the doubt being the three belt champion, and he wasn’t getting any credit for him being the one that was chasing Ward around the ring in the 12th and in the other rounds. Two of the judges still saw Ward winning round 12. If those two judges have given Kovalev the 12th, he would have won the fight.
“Sergey has no inside game,” said Ward via Yahoo Sports News.
The fight was just one of two highly controversial decisions on the card. The other one was the light welterweight clash between unbeaten Maurice Hooker and former WBA lightweight champion Darleys Perez. Many of the boxing fans in attendance at the fight felt that the 33-year-old Perez had done enough to get the win.
There’s a lot of controversy today about the results of the Kovalev-Ward fight. Many of the top sports writers in boxing thought Kovaelv did enough to get the victory. ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith believes that Kovalev was robbed last night.
”I’m sorry. Love Ward as a fighter and person. Glad he won…..but he did not deserve this. Fair-is-Fair. Kovalev got robbed! # Bad Decision,” said Smith. “Ward gets unanimous 114-113 decision on all 3 scorecards. Love, love, love Ward. But he did not deserve this. Kovalev won a close fight.”
It’s a pity that last night’s HBO pay-per-view card had to be tarnished by controversial scoring and an off night by the referee Robert Byrd. It could have been such a great card. Hooker and Ward arguably should have lost their fights, and a lot of the boxing public would have been happy with the results of those fights. Instead, it appears that a small percentage of fans and sports personalities are happy with Ward’s win over Kovalev, while the majority of fans see it as a controversial decision.
The thing is even with a rematch, there’s no guarantee that the judges will get it right the second time. If the fight is taking place in the U.S again, then you count on Ward having the fans showing up to support him. That means the cheering will largely be for Ward. If the judges are taking their cues from the fan applause rather than on what’s taking place inside the ring, then they’ll likely give Ward another controversial decision based on the applause he gets rather than on what he’s actually doing inside the ring.
Further, if a referee works the fight that doesn’t control Ward’s wrestling and holding like Byrd failed to do, then Ward is going to likely do exactly what he did last Saturday by grabbing Kovalev from round one and stalling out each round by not letting him get his shots off. Kovalev is not an inside fighter, but he shouldn’t have to be. This is boxing, not grappling. It’s the referee’s job to control the fight to keep fighters from turning the fight into a non-boxing type of sport, which is what we saw from Ward last night. Ward got way with tying Kovalev up all night, and the referee let it go on without addressing the rule bending.
“It’s the wrong decision,” said Kovalev. “He got maybe a few rounds. I agree with that. I kept control. I lost maybe three rounds the whole fight.”
A rematch between Ward and Kovalev is likely. There’s also a chance of Ward fighting a unification match against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson, who has made it clear that he wants to fight a unification match. However, it remains to be seen whether a fight between Ward and Stevenson could take place. That would be potentially a much tougher fight for Ward than his match against Kovalev, because Stevenson is fast and has huge power. It’s impossible to go 12 rounds without getting nailed by Stevenson many times.
Could Ward get through the entire fight without getting hammered at least 70 to 80 times with Stevenson’s power shots? I think not. That’s another reason why I doubt Ward will fight Stevenson. It’s a dangerous fight for Ward. I don’t think he could win it by wrestling. He would have to actually fight Stevenson.
Kovalev doesn’t have a lot of options available to him other than to try and get a rematch against Ward. With Kovalev under contract with HBO, he’s not likely going to be able to fight Al Haymon fighter Adonis Stevenson, who fights on Showtime. WBA ‘regular’ 175lb champion Nathan Cleverly likely won’t give Kovalev an easy title shot against him. Kovalev already stopped Cleverly in the 4th round three years ago in 2013.
Cleverly likely won’t want a second helping of Kovalev after that experience. Ward is really the only option for Kovalev unless he wants to sit around and just fight contenders rather than champions. Ward doesn’t have many great options either. With Ward now holding the IBF/WBA/WBC belts, he’s going to have to face unbeaten Artur Beterbiev soon. That would be a tough fight for Ward, because Beterbiev is very strong, and he’s got a good inside game unlike Kovalev.
If Ward decides to fight Beterbiev on the inside, he could be sorry he did so, because the Russian fighter is very strong and he throws powerful short punches in close. Beterbiev has the kind of knockout power to where he could KO Ward on the inside if he makes the mistake of trying to fight him there. I don’t see Ward and his promoters at Roc Nation Sports being in any kind of hurry to fight Beterbiev. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fight doesn’t happen until 2019 if Ward is still the champion by then. With the kind of scoring we saw last night, Ward could stay the champion at 175 for a long, long time. If that’s the case, then he’ll eventually need to fight Beterbiev.