By Scott Gilfoid: WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew doesn’t see any fighter from 168 to 175 that can beat the undefeated Andre Ward (30-0, 15 Kos), and that includes IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs), who he’ll be facing this Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bellew raves about Ward’s boxing skills, comparing him to a young Bernard Hopkins, and seeing his inside game as being top notch. Bellew sees very little difference in the size of Ward and Kovalev despite Ward having moved up to the 175lb division just last year after having campaigned his entire career up to that point at super middleweight.
Bellew thinks that Ward may even be a little bit bigger than the 33-year-old Kovalev. That’s bad news for the Russian fighter, because he might need a size advantage in this fight for him to have a chance of beating the talented Ward. If both guys are the same size, then it’s going to be a real hard night’s work for Kovalev, because Ward has the faster hand speed, and the superior accuracy. He also has the better reflexes of the two.
The only thing that Kovalev has going for him in this fight is his punching power. He normally is the bigger guy inside the ring, but he sure won’t be on Saturday night, because Ward is looking really thick right now after putting on a lot of size. Both fighters are 6’0”, and have similar reach.
Bellew said this to skysports.com about his thoughts on Andre Ward:
“Andre Ward is a master technician,” Bellew said to skysports.com. “No fighter from super-middle to light-heavyweight can beat him. His up-close game is second to none and he can negate any power puncher in the business. To get inside you have to take some stuff to get there and that’s always the danger, but Ward is clever enough to get in and make you pay, like in the Carl Froch fight.”
It’s not even fair to bring up the Froch vs. Ward fight, because that was a total mismatch. Ward had Froch tied up in knots from round one to the bitter end in the twelfth. Froch looked like he didn’t belong in the same ring with Ward. Froch was getting picked off from the outside all night long, and dominated completely in close when the two fighters would come together. There was nothing that Froch could do in the fight but just take it. He was helpless to come up with any concrete ideas to handle Ward’s superior talent level.
Kovalev has got to try and take advantage of the only two things he has going for him in this fight and that’s his power and punch rate. If Kovalev can corner Ward and unload with a flurry of nonstop power shots, he might have a chance of winning. But for him to beat Ward, Kovalev will need to trap him against the ropes in every round to try and get the better of him. Ward isn’t going to fight Kovalev’s fight. He’s going to stay on the move, not get hit, and make sure he picks Kovalev apart. It’s going to be like that in every round of the fight.
“He reminds me of Bernard Hopkins from about 15 years ago, you could call him a modern day version,” said Bellew about Ward being similar to Hopkins. “They are both big light-heavyweights. They are very similar when considering their dimensions and size and in certain departments, Ward may even be bigger,” said Bellew about Ward being slightly bigger than Kovalev.
The outcome of this Saturday’s fight won’t be determined on size, punching power or punch volume. It’s going to be determined by talent and overall ability. The guy with the superior skill-set in this fight will win. I suspect it will be Ward that gets his hand raised at the end, but I could be wrong. It would be surprising news if Kovalev wins, because many boxing fans see Ward as being too good fight him.
It’s hard to ignore Ward’s talent advantage in this fight. As much as you try and not focus on the talent, it’s just there for Ward, and it makes it impossible to pick Kovalev. Unless Ward gets old all of a sudden on Saturday night, he should win this one going away. Kovalev is a good fighter, but Ward is a GREAT fighter. You can’t beat greatness with crude power. You’ve got to have the talent that goes along with the power. In Kovalev’s case, he has one of those attributes, but not both.
The boxing fans are going to be in for a real treat on Saturday night with the Ward-Kovalev fight being televised on HBO pay-per-view. I think this fight is well worth the money HBO is charging for it, because the fans most likely are going to be getting a memorable fight that they won’t soon forget. Who knows? If the Kovalev vs. Ward fight is exciting enough, we could see a rematch. It might turn into one of those trilogy type affairs where they fight each other three times. You never know. There isn’t anyone else for Ward and Kovalev to fight at 175, because the division is barren of talent right now.
Bellew used to fight at light heavyweight from 2007 to 2013. But after a 6th round TKO loss to Adonis Stevenson in 2013, Bellew moved up to cruiserweight where he’s been matched carefully by his promoter Eddie Hearn. Bellew won the WBC cruiserweight title last May in beating Ilunga Makabu by a 3rd round knockout. In Bellew’s first defense of his WBC belt, he defeated #14 WBC fringe contender BJ Flores by a 3rd round knockout. The 37-year-old Flores had recently been beaten with ease by Beibut Shumenov by a 12 round unanimous decision last July. It’s unclear why Bellew and Hearn chose Flores for the fight rather than a higher ranked contender that was doing better with their careers. I guess you can draw your own conclusions why Flores was picked out for Bellew rather than his unbeaten mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis. It seems pretty clear to me. It’s too bad Bellow moved up to cruiserweight without fighting Kovalev. It would have been interesting to see how Bellew would have done against a puncher like Kovalev. We already saw how Bellew did against Stevenson. Just out of curiosity, I still would have liked to have seen how Bellew would have done against Kovalev.