By Allan Fox: Light heavyweight champion Andre Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter is guaranteeing that his rematch with former 175 pound champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) will be a different fight when the two of them go at it on June 17 on HBO pay-per-view at the Mandalay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ward-Kovalev II rematch was announced last Tuesday after a lot of time spent in negotiating the fight. Ward, 32, has taken a lot of heat from boxing fans for winning a questionable 12 round unanimous decision over Kovalev on November 19 last year.
The fans saw Kovalev winning the fight. He knocked Ward down in the 2nd round, and spent most of the fight attacking him relentlessly. The fight slowed in the second half due to a lot of grabbing and mauling initiated by Ward. Hunter says the holding wasn’t being done by Ward. It was being done by Kovalev, and he says the rematch will be different. Hunter doesn’t say in what way the rematch will be different. In looking at video the Ward-Kovalev fight from last year, Ward was clearly ineffective when he was on the outside.
Kovalev had the size, power, jab and the ring smarts to get the better of Ward each time there was space between them. The only thing Ward could do was close the distance and take the fight to the inside each time. From there, it was just mauling with short punches that had little power. It didn’t look like an actual boxing fight. It looked like two MMA fighter fighting against the sides of the case, trying to throw short punches while a referee just stands there doing nothing to separate the two fighters.
“He got a knockdown,” said Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter to fighthype.com about Kovalev getting a knockdown in round 2 of their previous fight on November 19. “A lot of people say he was hurt badly. It would seem like he would have gotten him out of there. What he did was make him miss,” said Hunter about Ward making Kovalev miss with some of his shots,” said Hunter.
I’m not sure what Hunter is talking about when he says that Kovalev was missing a lot, because I didn’t see the same thing. Maybe it’s been a while since Hunter watched the Ward-Kovalev fight, because I didn’t see a lot of missing from Kovalev. I watched a replay of the fight before writing this article, and I saw Kovalev landing a lot of shots. He did miss with some of his punches, but so did Ward. I saw a lot of missed punches from Ward. Hunter needs to step back and see the fight objectively. If you look at the fight in a non-biased way, you can see that both fighters were missing about the same rate. What I did notice in watching the fight was that Kovalev was attacking ALL the time, and landing the much harder shots.
There was a lot less holding between them than I had previously remembered. There was a lot of actual fighting, and Kovalev appeared to get the better of it without a doubt. What was shocking was that all 3 judges were giving Ward round after round in the last 6 rounds of the fight. In re-watching it, I couldn’t give Ward 1 round in the last 6 rounds. I had Kovalev winning every round. Some of the rounds were close, but he still landed the better shots and was the one doing most the attacking. Ward’s punches were often thrown while the two of them were tied up. I couldn’t count those as being in the same league as the ones that Kovalev was landing when the two of them were on the outside. I noticed that Ward landed some low blows that the referee Robert Byrd nothing about. He didn’t give a warning to Ward or anything. It was as if the referee hadn’t seen the low blows. To his credit, Kovalev didn’t return the fouls with fouls of his own. Kovalev took the high road.
“After the 2nd round, you never saw another round like that. It changed just like that. The fact that you saw Kovalev in distress, it angered a lot of people. They want to go to the early part of the fight to justify that he [Kovalev] should have won the fight. As you look at the fight, as it went on, it was obvious who was dictating. The smaller man was attacking. Here’s a little man attacking, letting you know this is how it’s going to be. So you should have finished the job, but you couldn’t,” said Hunter about Kovalev. “It’ll be different [in the rematch]. It’s going to be different in the rematch. But he didn’t box him, he fought him,” said Hunter about Ward in his fight with Kovalev. “He boxed him some, but basically he fought him and he felt him, no matter what he wants to say,” said Hunter.
Hunter says Kovalev was in distress after round 2. I didn’t see Kovalev in any kind of distress at any point after round 2. I did see Kovalev attacking Ward nonstop. I did see holding, mauling and wrestling from Ward. That I saw, but I didn’t see Kovalev looking worried. It’s interesting how some trainers like to glorify what their fighters do inside the ring. If I was training Ward, I would have seen exactly what I saw. I would have saw him losing to Kovalev in a one-sided fight.
I had Kovalev winning 10 rounds to 2. I couldn’t give Ward more than 2 rounds, because he was getting out-punched in every round of the fight. The only thing Ward did was grab Kovalev and try and throw short punches in the clinch. I don’t score those kinds of punches. We see fighters landing rabbit shots and short punches in the clinch. I don’t score those shots nearly as high as I do when there’s separation between the two fighters. Unfortunately for Ward, most of his punches in the fight were landed while he was in close with him holding onto Kovalev.
Ward was not taking the fight to Kovalev. If you look at the replay, it was Kovalev coming forward almost all the time. Rarely, you’d see Ward pushing the fight. Ward wasn’t able to push the fight because he lacked the power and the size to back Kovalev up. When Ward would attack, Kovalev would stand his ground, and the two of them would meet. Ward would then start mauling with holding and wrestling. It was like this a lot in the fight. Ward was not taking the fight to Kovalev, unless you consider grappling as attacking. If this was a college wrestling match, Ward was the winner. But in actual fighting, I had Kovalev winning easily 10 rounds to 2. The 2 rounds that I gave to Ward were rounds that I still thought Kovalev did the better work. I just gave Ward the rounds because they were close. Kovalev landed the better shots.
Hunter says Ward has a rematch clause in the contract, so if Kovalev wins, there will be a trilogy bout. I think there’s going to be a trilogy no matter who wins the fight. Ward doesn’t have anyone else to fight at 175 other than Kovalev if he wants to make good money. He’s already said he’s not interested in fighting Adonis Stevenson. There wouldn’t be much interest in Ward facing Jean Pascal. That fight is not appealing anymore after Kovalev twice knocked out Pascal.
“We’d just go to a trilogy,” said Hunter when asked what Ward will do if he loses to Kovalev. “I think there’s a rematch clause in the contract, if I’m not mistaken. We’d go to a trilogy. We were made out to be the ones holding, but not one time did we get you in a head-lock. Not one time did we get you in a bear-hug. When we would attack you, you’d grab us. When you grab us, we’re not going to just let you grab us, and let you do what you want to do. I challenge anybody to get with me and watch the fight and let me count the initiated holds, and I guarantee you Andre is nowhere near Kovalev,” said Hunter.
Hunter is kidding himself if he really believes that Ward didn’t put Kovalev in a bear hug during the fight. There are clear photos that show Ward putting Kovalev in a bear hug to keep him from punching.
“I’m not surprised because he really had no place to go,” said Sanchez to Dontae’s Boxing Nation about Ward signing for a rematch with Kovalev. “He’s not going to fight Adonis Stevenson, and he’s not going to retire for a year. Kovalev seems to be the only [fight out there]. They had a rematch clause. It would have been difficult for him to go anywhere without some litigation. The reason I gave him [Ward] the edge if he signed is because I think he can make the adjustments better because I think he has the better people around him,” said Sanchez.
