By Jeff Aranow: Kathy Duva, the promoter for Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev, says he’s angry and ready to avenge his loss to Andre “SOG” Ward on Saturday night. Duva says that Kovalev always fights better when he’s angry. She points out that Kovalev in his rematches with Darnell Boone and Jean Pascal, and he destroyed both of those guys.
Kovalev was also angry in his fight with Isymal Sillakh, and he obliterated him in a 2nd round knockout in 2013. This could be bad for Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) if Kovalev is angry tonight when the two of them start trading shots on HBO pay-per-view at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“He’s done his best work when he’s angry, he focuses better,” Duva said to the latimes.com. “He takes that rage and focuses it in the ring. It’s what makes him better. All this [with Ward] is terrific.”
Ward is going to make it tough for Kovalev to land his big power shots in the first half of the fight. Ward is going to be charging with his head down when he’s attacking from the outside. Kovalev will need to be awfully quick with his shots for him to catch Ward, who fights like a Billy goat at times with the way he comes forward with his head. Much has been said about welterweight Shawn Porter coming forward with his head down when attacking, but Ward does the exact same thing. We saw what Ward did to the face of Mikkel Kessler in their fight in the Super Six tournament in 2009. Both of Kessler’s eyes were cut badly from head-butts. Kovalev will need to catch Ward while he’s charging with his head down. Ward is hard to hit cleanly unless you hit him on the top of his head when he’s in ramming position.
Kovalev isn’t going to be able to stay angry for long if Ward ties him up each round and tries to rough him up. Ward is capable of tying up Kovalev for 3 minutes of every round if he has to. If Kovalev can’t get leverage on his power shots on the inside, then he’s going to be at the mercy of Ward.
I think it’s safe to assume that Ward and his trainer Virgil Hunter have poured over the video of Ward’s previous fight with Kovalev, and seen that he was mainly effective against the Russian fighter when he was tying him up in close to keep him from throwing his big power shots. Ward’s main plan for the rematch against Kovalev will probably involve him forcing him to fight on the inside for long stretches of the fight.
I’m sure if Ward still had the speed and fast footwork of his early 20s, he would prefer to fight on the outside, but he’s not that same fighter anymore. Ward has slowed down since hitting his early 30s, and he can’t do a lot of the same things that he used to. Ward tried to fight Kovalev on the outside, but he was knocked down and punished in the first 2 rounds. Ward didn’t want to go back to that style after the 2nd round. I can’t see Ward changing for the rematch to fight Kovalev at a distance, because he’s already been proven to be inadequate.
Ward is counting on Kovalev being angry, because he believes he can take advantage of it. Ward wasn’t really getting the better of Kovalev on the outside during the fight. Kovalev owned Ward on the outside. It was in close that Ward was able to land some short body shots. Kovalev wasn’t throwing punches on the inside. So each time Ward would tie Kovalev up in a clinch, he was the only one that was landing shots.
Kovalev states that he ran out of gas after the 5th round, which is why he became less effective in the second half of the fight. He says he’s watched the film of the first fight, and he’s picked out all the things he did wrong. He now has fixed those mistakes and is ready to beat Ward.
“I went over all my past mistakes and I’m very excited. I don’t have any more patience remaining left. I just want to kick Ward’s [rear],” said Kovalev.
It would be surprising if Kovalev is able to fix the mistakes that he made in the first fight. The things that Kovalev need to do for him to beat Ward are as follows:
– Be first when he’s on the outside. In the second half of the fight, Kovalev was waiting too much when he was standing in front of Ward. He enabled Ward to throw and land his shots first. Kovalev was a lot better he was the one getting his punches off without waiting on Ward.
– Not throwing when Ward would move in close. Ward was wide open each time he would initiate a clinch. Kovalev should have taken advantage of Ward when he was closing the distance.
– Kovalev wasn’t throwing punches on the inside. He was mostly just holding to keep Ward from throwing his own punches. That’s not going to work for Kovalev if he wants to beat Ward in the rematch. He’s got to fight him on the inside. Kovalev needs to assume that the major portion of the rematch with Ward is going to be spent at close quarters. That’s the area that Ward likes to fight at when he’s facing someone with punching power. We saw Ward battled the following fighters on the inside much of the time: Arthur Abraham, Allan Green, Mikkel Kessler, Chad Dawson, Edwin Rodriguez, Carl Froch and Sakio Bika.
Kovalev wasn’t able to fight well enough on the inside for him to get the better of Ward in the second half of the fight. That was the thing that gave Kovalev the biggest headaches. It’s unclear whether Kovalev has worked on his inside game or not. If he’s looking at other mistakes, then he’s probably going to have problems against Ward again, because it was his inability to fight Ward on the inside that led to him having the most problems.
Kovalev needs to learn how to throw punches when Ward is in close trying to turn the fight into a close quarters brawl. There are some fighters in the 175 pound division that would do well against Ward if he tried to fight on the inside against them. Artur Beterbiev is one of those fighters.
“He can be as mad as he wants to be. Frankly, I think that’s a good thing,” said Ward to the latimes.com. “If he wants to come in there hot-headed, we’re going to cool him off round by round. It’s my job to turn him away.”
It might not be a good thing for Ward if Kovalev is angry in the first 2 to 3 rounds. Ward can whitewash if he wants and say it’s a good thing, but I don’t think it is. Kovalev can do a lot of damage in 2 to 3 rounds while he’s angry. Ward doesn’t have the fire power to compete with Kovalev while he’s in that state.
The only thing Ward can do is try and tie Kovalev up on the inside and make him wrestle free in order to throw punches. If Ward can grab Kovalev and ties him up for long stretches in the early rounds, then it’s going to be useless for him to be angry. He won’t be able to do anything with his anger but wrestle Ward. However, if Kovalev has learned how to fight on the inside since his loss to Ward, then everything will be different tonight in the rematch.
Ward will be stuck and won’t be able to slow the fight down by taking it to close quarters to drain Kovalev’s strength by wrestling with him. I still believe Ward’s Plan-A will be for him to fight on the inside. Even if Ward isn’t quite as effective as he was last time, I think he’ll try and keep it on the inside in every round of the fight. You have to understand that Ward has no other choice but to keep the fight inside. He doesn’t have good enough boxing skills to beat Kovalev on the outside the way he needs to. If it were someone more limited than Kovalev like Sullivan Barrera or Alexander Brand, then Ward could get the better of them on the outside. But this Kovalev, and he already showed last time that he’s better than Ward when the two of them are fighting at a distance.
