By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) will be facing former 168lb champion Andre “SOG” Ward (30-0, 15 KOs) this Saturday night on November 19 on HBO pay-per-view in their long awaited fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ward, 32, is the favorite to win on Saturday by the odds-makers. Kovalev isn’t too worried about that, considering he believes that the Ward has had more focus put on him by the bettors. They’ve seen more of him.
Kovalev is just looking forward to proving everyone wrong and joying it afterwards when he’s the one that gets his hand raised by the referee.
The perception of one of these fighters is going to change in the minds of boxing fans after Saturday. One guy will be elevated to the top of the sport and likely seen as the pound-for-pound fighter. The loser of the contest will be perceived by some as a fighter that was overvalued by the fans.
If Ward loses the fight, you can argue that he’s not the same fighter that dominated the Super Six tournament five years ago. Ward appeared to be a much better fighter back then in terms of his physical skills. He appears to have lost a significant part of his game due to inactivity. If Kovalev loses the fight, then he’s not going to have the same excuse as Ward, because he’s still in the prime of his career. There hasn’t been any slippage yet with Kovalev. He’s still the same fighter that he was three years ago. He might not have the opposition to fight for him to prove it, but he appears to be the same fighter he was in the past.
As bad as Ward has looked in his last three fights, it’s surprising that he’s any kind of favorite. Ward has not looked like the Ward from the past. He was a much different fighter than he did today. Since Ward came back to boxing last year after a two-year layoff, he’s looked slow, sluggish, and weak and has been a completely stationary fighter. Ward’s three wins in his comeback have come against Paul Smith, Sullivan Barrera and Alexander Brand. Barrera is the only light heavyweight out of that bunch. Ward looked vulnerable against Barrera. Ward won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores
“Andre Ward is a very talented fighter and very smart,” said Kovalev to Larry King. “He’s not a fighter. He’s a boxer. What he will bring to the ring on November 19, I want to see it. Boxing speculators look at him much better. I don’t know why. I don’t care about this at all, who is the underdog and who is the favorite. It’s not important to me. Most of my important fights, I fight as a guest in another country since an amateur age. I really like when I disappoint everybody of my opponent. It makes me happy. I must kick his [expletive],” said Kovalev.
What we’re finding out is the odds-makers don’t know a lot about boxing, because they’re frequently wrong. All we can go by is how Ward has looked in his last three fights when predicting the future in his fight against Kovalev, and he hasn’t looked good. If Ward had showed any kind of punching power in his last three fights, it would have made news by now. Ward hasn’t shown any power at all. He’s also not shown the ability to throw a lot of punches. Ward has won his last three fights by throwing pot shots, and getting out of the way of his opponents return fire.
For Ward to beat Kovalev on Saturday night, he’s going to need to show dramatic improvements in these three areas:
– Work-rate – We haven’t seen Ward show the ability to throw many punches in his comeback fights. Ward has fought like he’s stingy with his punches, as if he doesn’t want to throw shots. That appears to me to be a product of age setting in for Ward. He’s 32, and it’s young for some fighters and not others. There are a lot of fighters that weren’t the same guys when they reached 32. I think that could be the situation for Ward. Those two years he was out of boxing, he got old during that time, and he’s not able to return to the younger fighter from the 20s that he was before. There is no fountain of youth unfortunately. Ward is not aging backwards like in the movie ‘Benjamin Button.’ Ward is only going to get worse from this point on, and I don’t think any amount of tune-8ps is going to help him at this point. The Ward that we saw in his last three fights will be the Ward that we see this Saturday night when he shares the ring with Kovalev. I don’t think that version of Ward will be nearly good enough for him to do the job against a talented fighter like Kovalev, who is still in his prime. Kovalev is a young 33, and is still very much in his prime. He might be one of those guys that will still be fighting at a high level when he hits his 40s. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case. I see Kovalev as the younger fighter in this Saturday’s match. To look at the way the two fighters performed in their last two fights, I’d say Kovalev is fighting at a much higher level than Ward right now.
– Punching power – Without Ward being able to generate power on his shots, he’s not going to be able to keep Kovalev off of him at all. It’s not easy to keep Kovalev off of you even when you can punch, but Ward is another Nathan Cleverly when it comes to power. We saw what happened to Cleverly when he fought Kovalev several years ago. Cleverly was blown out easily in four rounds. Ward is going to need to go on the attack mode in this fight early in order to win Kovalev’s respect. If all Ward is capable of doing is throwing weak shots and holding nonstop, he’s not going to be effective with that kind of approach, because he’s going to get blown out.
– Mobility – Ward will need to use movement like he did in the past for him to beat Kovaelv on Saturday night, because he’ll be a trapped fighter if he gets stuck in one place against him. Ward doesn’t have the chin or the power to keep Kovalev off of him if he puts pressure on him and looks to score a knockout like he normally does. Ward doesn’t have the kind of chin to take the big shots that Kovalev will be hitting him with if he doesn’t run.
Ward needs to make sure that he’s not just spoiling in this fight, because the judges are not going to give him the decision if he’s seen holding and moving, and not actually fighting. Kovalev said it himself that Ward is a boxer, not a puncher. He knows what we’re going to likely be seeing from Ward on Saturday. Kovalev sees Ward as a dirty fighter, who likes to wrestle. Kovalev plans on having something that will negate Ward’s wrestling on Saturday.