By Allan Fox: Former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin thinks there’s a chance that Andre “SOG” Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) could totally overwhelm former IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) with his class when the two fighters face each other on June 17 in their rematch on HBO pay-per-view. Quillin says there’s a chance that Ward could pull a similar number against Kovalev in the second fight as Floyd Mayweather Jr. did in beating Jose Luis Castillo by a 12 round unanimous decision in their rematch on December 7, 2002.
Quillin says Mayweather totally outclassed Castillo in the second fight. At the very least Quillin expects Ward to beat Kovalev like he did in their first fight.
The Ward-Kovalev rematch will be taking place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I remember a lot sparring Kovalev, a very rangy and he can punch,” said Quillin to Fighthye.com. “I remember he put a lot of pressure. He cuts the ring off really good, but it wasn’t to the point where I wasn’t able to handle it. He had a big battery on his back. What you notice about some pure boxers sometimes, when they get to know a guy, they get where we saw Floyd Mayweather, who had a very controversial win over [Jose Luis] Castillo in their first fight, he came back in their second fight and totally outclassed him. So we could possibly see that [with the Ward vs. Kovalev II rematch] or something close to the first fight,” said Quillin.
Quillin’s thoughts about the second Mayweather-Castillo fight makes me wonder if he even saw that fight. If Quillin saw the fight, he’d have noticed that Mayweather barely beat Castillo the second time. It was very close. Mayweather fought well enough to deserve the decision, but it was not a fight in which Mayweather “totally outclassed” Castillo like Quillin says. I had Mayweather just barely edging the fight. I had Mayweather losing the first fight against Castillo in April 2002. That was a terrible decision. The judges scored the second Mayweather-Castillo fight 115-113, 116-113 and 115-113. I don’t know where Quillin got this “totally outclassed” stuff from, but I think he might have been talking about another fight because Mayweather barely beat Castillo in the second fight.
I don’t think Ward can do any more than what he did in the previous Kovalev fight. When the two fighters were on the outside, Kovalev was always the better guy because he had better range, superior power, and the far better jab. The only thing that Ward was able to do was throw a jab and then duck his head and rush forward to start mauling on the inside. Kovalev wasn’t doing much when the two of them were holding each other. That was his mistake. But if you look at the fight, Ward did next to nothing on the inside as well. He didn’t land very much at all when the two of them were in close. What punches Ward did land, they were outweighed by what Kovalev was doing when the two fighters were separated.
Kovalev always got the better of Ward in every round when the two of them were on the outside. Even in the 12th, Kovalev was superior to Ward when the two of them were on the outside. It was a situation where you could tell that Kovalev will always be a better fighter than Ward from the distance no matter what SOG does. He’s just not big enough, and he doesn’t have enough left in the tank at his age to beat Kovalev when the two of them are on the outside.
“That’s the thrill of boxing that we just have to wait and watch, because anything can happen in the ring,” said Quillin. “That signifies a lot when you get dropped and get off the canvas,” said Quillin about Ward being knocked down in round 2 by Kovalev in their previous fight on November 19 last year. “Andre got back up and then showed a lot of his durability and ability of what he was able to do. Kovalev would have got more credibility if he had just stopped him,” said Quillin.
I don’t think Ward looked much better after he got back up compared to what he was looking like before he was dropped in round 2. The only thing that I saw that Ward did differently for the remainder of the fight was land a few shots in close in each round. Ward didn’t land much at all on the inside. It was largely two fighters canceling each other out. If Ward did do a little bit better, it wasn’t enough for him to win rounds. I saw Kovalev dominating from the distance.
HBO impressed by Daniel Jacobs’ performance against Gennady Golovkin
HBO’s people were reportedly impressed with what they saw in former WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs in his fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on Marcy 18, according to Ringtv.com. HBO is said to be interested in having the 30-year-old Jacobs return to their network to fight against. However, Jacobs fights on Showtime, and it’s unclear whether his manager Al Haymon would be open to having him fight on HBO in the future.
Despite a late surge in the last 5 rounds of the fight, Jacobs lost to Golovkin by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 115-112, 115-112 and 114-113. It was close, but Jacobs still lost the fight. He didn’t fight hard enough in the first 7 rounds to win. There are some boxing fans that believed that Jacobs could have won if he had fought hard in the first half of the fight. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is of the opinion that Jacobs should have taken the fight to Golovkin right from the start. That might have played into Golovkin’s hands, because he prefers when his opponents come right at him. He sees that all the time.
What Golovkin doesn’t see are fighters moving in circles and just boxing the way that Jacobs was doing. It’s a double-edged sword. By fighting the way Jacobs did, he lost any chance of winning the fight by not being aggressive. However, if he had been aggressive and taken the fight to Golovkin, he could very well have been stopped immediately. It could very well be that Jacobs fought the best that he could in fighting the only way that would allow him a chance of winning. He came close by boxing Golovkin.
“Danny made a lot of fans that day with his fight against Gennady Golovkin so it’s nice to see that HBO liked what they saw,” said Jacobs’ manager Keith Connolly to RingTV.com. “However, we work with Al Haymon and anything we do would have to be agreed upon with him involved. So, it remains to be seen if HBO’s interest will turn into anything more than just flattery.”
Jacobs hasn’t said which direction he’ll be going in when he does return to the ring. He’s had largely 7 years of tune-up level fights since his loss to Dmitry Pirog. Hopefully, Jacobs’ loss to Golovkin isn’t an excuse for him to return to fighting more tune-up fights, because he’s quickly burning through his career and his youth fighting weaker opposition. Before Jacobs’ loss to Golovkin, he had fought the following guys in the last couple of years: Sergio Mora x 2, Jarrod Fletcher, Caleb Truax, Peter Quillin, and Milton Nunez.
The Quillin fight was a good one, but the rest of those matches were tune-up level fights. If Jacobs is going to go back to fighting those types of guys, it makes you wonder what he’s going to do when Jermalll Charlo slides in front of him to take Golovkin’s titles when the Kazakhstan fighter moves up in weight after this year is over. Jacobs needs to keep fighting the best instead of going back to his old ways of fighting soft opposition for years on end.
