Kovalev angry, says “I lost only 3 rounds”

By Boxing News - 11/20/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) found out what it’s like to be on the receiving end up what many boxing fans saw as a hometown decision in losing to American Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) by an ugly controversial 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The fight was televised by HBO pay-per-view, and some of the commentators working the fight had Kovalev winning, as did many of the media at press row. They felt that Kovalev had done enough to win the fight. Kovalev believes that at most he lost three rounds of the fight. The judges felt different. They scored it 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113. This meant that the judges saw Ward winning 7 rounds to 5. Ward was knocked down in the 2nd round by a right hand from Kovalev. I happened to agree with Kovalev that Ward won only three rounds from what I saw. Two of the rounds that I gave Ward were rounds where I really didn’t think he deserved them. I was just basing them on the crowd cheering for his jabs landed. Kovalev landed the harder shots, but his punches didn’t result in cheering from the crowd for some reason.

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“It’s the wrong decision. I don’t want to say my opinion,” said Kovalev. “The witnesses are here – they saw it. It’s my job. It was a fight of my life. I am disappointed in the judges’ decision. He got maybe a few rounds, I agree with that. I kept control. I lost maybe three rounds the whole fight…of course, I want a rematch and I will kick his ass. I want to show good boxing. I am against here it is the USA and all the judges were from the USA. He is a boxer. It’s a sport, don’t make it politics. It’s a sport and I won the fight!”

It was not a great fight unfortunately for the boxing fans. It was a tactical battle with a lot of holding and wrestling initiated by Ward. When he wasn’t holding, Ward would move around on the outside and look to land jabs. Ward wasn’t trying to land many right hands. It was mostly jabs and occasionally left hooks.

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Kovalev had a hard time getting in position to land his shots, because Ward would grab him before he could land anything of substance.

Ward had problems with Kovalev’s punching power early in the fight. Ward was able to nullify Kovalev’s power by grabbing him frequently to keep him from throwing his punches. Referee Robert Byrd failed to keep Ward’s holding in check, so it kind of spun out of control and got worse as the fight progressed.

It was Byrd’s job to make sure the fans saw a boxing match tonight. Instead, the fans saw an MMA type of fight where a boxer was facing a wrestler. Ward was not holding for survival. He was using the holding as a tactic. It was the referee’s job to control the holding by Ward, but he failed to do so tonight.

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The win for Ward keeps him unbeaten and gives him another world title in a second division. Ward previously held world titles at super middleweight. He moved up in weight last year in search of bigger fights in the 175lb division. He was able to get a title shot against Kovalev after beating three tune-up opponents Paul Smith, Sullivan Barrera and Alexander Brand.

If you were to give Ward any credit tonight, you’d have to give him credit for his mauling/wrestling on the inside. The wrestling he did seemed to tire Kovalev out in the later rounds. With Ward constantly grabbing and wrestling him, Kovalev seemed to lose energy on his shots in the last four rounds. Kovalev was still landing the harder punches, but he was throwing fewer of them before being grabbed each time. Ward was moving away from Kovalev in circles when he would attack. The judges probably should have noted that Ward was evading the action and given the rounds to Kovalev, because the fight had stopped being a boxing match after the 2nd round. It had become one fighter wrestling a boxer. It was not a pleasing fight to watch.

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