"SE" - about the fight in Las Vegas, the undefeated WBA, WBO and IBF light heavyweight champion to this day and American Andre Ward. Three judges with a margin of one point awarded the victory Russian rival.
The fight started quite well for Kovalev. In the first two rounds, he had a chance to decide everything in his favor. And then Ward was able to turn the tide of the fight and impose his unpleasant manner. In this viscous duel, he was stronger. By decision of the judges (score - 114:113, 114:113 and 114:113).
Judges' Notes:
08.38 All 12 rounds behind. The judges decide in favor of Ward. Kovalev lost
08.34 11th round. Ward was set up in the corner not to worry or worry about anything.
08.33 The tenth round leaves not the most pleasant impression. A tough exchange of blows took place. And Kovalev can't get in the way he knows how. One hit would have been enough for Ward.
08.32 Tenth round.
08.31 The battle sways a little - the denouement is close. This makes the room active as well. Finally!
08.28 Ninth round.
08.27 As it was sung in one famous song - "little fire". Ward imposes his fighting style on Kovalev. And makes the opponent nervous. In general, Ward does not allow himself to be beaten.
08.24 Eighth round.
08.23 Kovalev manages to throw Ward off balance. But the main thing is not possible - to strike his signature blow. If they pass, they are exceptionally easy.
08.20 Seventh round.
08.19 There are many such viscous and unpleasant fights in the ring. Boxing itself is almost non-existent.
08.16 Sixth round.
08.15 Kovalev misses several extremely unpleasant blows in the fifth round. Perhaps, for the first time since the beginning of the fight, we can talk about a slight advantage of Ward.
08.12 Fifth round. And let's not forget that we are watching the fight of two undefeated boxers so far. Someone today will suffer the first defeat in their careers.
08.11 In the fourth round, Ward rebuilt a little - now he is trying to respond to every blow of Kovalev with his own. Several cross attacks happened.
08.08 Round number four!
08.07 The third round went in a very calm manner.
08.04 From the first seconds of the third round, Kovalev continues what he started, and Ward goes into the clinch and turns boxing into a fight.
08.03 In the second round, Kovalev pretty patted his opponent. And it is worth noting that, to some extent, Ward was lucky that everything was not over now.
08.02 There is the first knockdown of Ward!
08.00 A little rest - and the second round!
07.59 The first round is over. A couple of hard attacks were carried out by Kovalev, but before his famous crushing blows the case has not been completed yet.
07.56 The fight has begun!
07.50 We recall the main victories at the moment.
07.40 Chelyabinsk nugget - the most titled Russian boxer - will meet with the most serious opponent in his career, an American Andre Ward. Both did not know defeat, both claim to be the best boxer in the world, regardless of weight class, and at stake is the defense of three titles - WBA, WBO, IBF. Kovalev spent 31 fights without a single defeat. Ward's statistics are also impeccable - 30 wins, never lost. This is enough to understand that the felling will be serious.
07.30 Hello everyone! In about 30 minutes in Las Vegas undefeated champion world WBA, WBO and IBF light heavyweight titles will meet with the most serious rival in his career - an American Andre Ward.
As you know, the Russian heavyweight Sergey Kovalev lost to the Colombian Eleider Alvarez by technical knockout in the seventh round and lost the WBO world title.
About the reasons for the defeat - Chief Editor Internet publications "Boxing. Drummers" Valery Sizonenko:
The first reason for the defeat: the incorrect distribution of fuel for the entire battle is the most weakness with Sergei Kovalev.
The second reason: the coach.
The coach, the second in the corner, must first of all be a psychologist and strategist, and only then be able to hold his paws and remind the student of the basics of boxing. Unfortunately, Kovalev had no luck with coaches, physical education teachers, and at this level there must be an appropriate coach, otherwise sooner or later you will be counted, which happened with Sergey Kovalev.
The chronic cause of Kovalev's defeats is spiritual. "I know everything", "I can do everything"! With such arrogance, sooner or later you will be overtaken, and you will forget how to do what you knew how to do before. Professional growth stops, and sooner or later old baggage will become scarce.
And this arrogance turns into problems with psychology. A proud person cannot admit that he was wrong, respectively, he puts himself in a hostage situation. He receives an additional burden of responsibility, and also deprives himself of the opportunity to maneuver, because he cannot go against his ego.
After the second defeat of Kovalev, the coach Andre Ward offered him a joint job: the specialist who calculated Kovalev imprisoned Andre Ward for this and made him a victory.
Did Kovalev take this chance to start working with a high-class coach who can take you to a new level? No. Why? Yes, because pride did not allow it. Because Kovalev could not accept these defeats and analyze them. And in a fight, when a fighter with a broken and uncorrected psychology misses a blow and finds himself in a difficult situation, his first thoughts are: “Again”? "Again"? "What to do"?
What did Ward do when he was knocked down by Kovalev? He clinched, waited out and turned the tide of the battle.
What did Kovalev do when he found himself in a similar situation with Alvarez?
Went to exchange! This is a deadly mistake! You missed a punch, you have a mess in your head, your reflexes are broken, you lose speed and power, you have no advantage in the exchange, this is an unjustified risk! This is the mistake of a beginner in the professional ring: he missed, and went "pan or miss", with a 90% chance of losing by knockout.
Has Alvarez ended his career as a Crusher?
Question only to Kovalev. If he is ready to kill pride in himself, endure mental suffering and personal shame, find inner humility, he should seek help from people who can reanimate him, and add to this a mixture of his steel character, show patience, and great diligence. Crusher can reboot and return as a new version of itself. Or maybe just swell, healing mental trauma. The choice is only his.
Perhaps to return to 35 years after such a defeat?
Certainly. Nothing is impossible as long as we are alive, as long as there is health and desire!
Bernard Hopkins, whom Kovalev admired as his own best opponent, at the age of 46 gave boxing lessons to younger colleagues. Why? Yes, because Hopkins, like Andre Ward, is a thinking and hardworking boxer! And that's exactly what they need to learn! Think! And not on emotions to make decisions and act.
I wish Kovalev to draw the right conclusions. And remember the words he said Murat Gassiev after his recent defeat: "Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take two forward!"
Sergey Kovalev lost. It's time to go?
The main Russian boxer stopped a step away from the unification fight and is now close to the end of his career.
After two losses Andre Ward I thought not only about changing the coach, but also about adjusting my lifestyle. In almost every interview, the Russian said that previously he did not bother himself with training between fights, allowing himself to rest a little more than he should.
Before the fight with Alvarez, Crusher again repeated that he had changed, learned from painful defeats and was immensely glad that someone from above gave him another chance. In all these interviews, one thing was a little scary - Sergey talked too much about the past, and fights with Vyacheslav Shabransky and Igor Mikhalkin failed to appreciate the present. It was he who had to explain to all of us, and at the same time to Kovalev himself, whether the reboot was really a success.
According to rumors, which Sergei himself later indirectly confirmed, before the fight with the Colombian, he had one of the best training camps in his life. At the weigh-in before the fight itself, the Russian showed 78.9 kilograms on the scales, which is 500 grams less than the allowable limit. It was good sign, given that in last time It was quite difficult for Kovalev to weight cut.
Then you can look for a catch in Sergey's excessive smile at the weigh-in and even during the fight. You can look for something in the look of a Russian before a fight. But all this will be just speculation and conspiracy theory. The truth is that Kovalev was winning the fight and outbid Alvarez.
At the time the fight was stopped, all three judges gave the victory to the Russian: 59-55, 59-55 and 58-56, and the strike statistics were also on Sergey's side: 91 to 73 hits on target out of 331 and 251, respectively.
The crasher failed the crash test. Alvarez knocked out Kovalev
Sergey Kovalev lost by heavy knockout for the first time.
Kovalev was more active, but Alvarez was more accurate. After each defeat from Ward, Sergey could always find excuses and, in fact, not prevaricate - in the first fight he was really sued. The second time, he actually got hit below the belt. Only many for some reason forgot the course of the second duel and no longer remember what preceded final series strikes that brought it to a stop. Kovalev was losing the fight and in the eighth round Ward managed to shock the Russian with a clean punch.
This time, Kovalev, fans and spectators can again go the easy way and attribute everything to a random hit. This will be partly true again, but it will only once again take the focus away from certain problems, the nature of which is again very difficult to determine.
We have seen situations more than once when a boxer ages overnight right before our eyes, as was the case with Wladimir Klitschko in combat with Tyson Fury or with David Haye in two fights Tony Bellew. At the same time, it can be stated with confidence once again that in boxing, in no case can you trust the numbers in your passport.
If you suddenly didn’t know, Alvarez is only a year and six days younger than Kovalev. But the problem was different - Eleider was a contender for the WBC title for two years, and only by coincidence did he get the chance of a lifetime in a fight with another champion. How important this fight was for the Colombian could be seen from his look.
Sergey Kovalev lost by knockout to Eleider Alvarez. How it was
Crusher lost his WBO light heavyweight title.
Another simple solution would be to write off what happened to the notorious lack of hunger. You can talk about the underestimation of the opponent, which is frankly hard to believe.
Sergey's promoter Katie Duva has already shared her version. In an interview with ESPN, the head of Main Events explained what happened like this:
“Sergey was winning, but he seems to be tired after the sixth round. It's a magic round, as it was in the first fight with Ward. I guess he's just tired.
I was happy with how the fight was going, but I told Kovalev's manager Egis Klimas: "Let's go through the sixth round and I will relax." But you saw what happened. I do not want to belittle the merits of Alvarez. Sergey dominated, and Eleider came back and stopped him. This is quite an impressive achievement. Sergei fought brilliantly for six rounds."
At the same time, Duva told a very important thing - the contract for the fight included a clause on revenge in the event of Sergey's defeat. Formally, Kovalev can get even at the end of this year, but…
The coach of the Russian Abror Tursunpulatov, in an interview with a TASS correspondent, said a rather discouraging thing:
“There will be no revenge, Seryoga should quit boxing. Health is not the same. Even if he won the fight, I would suggest that he end his career.”
Such a statement from the lips of the new coach looks like a sentence. There are no additional details yet, but it is quite obvious that Tursunpulatov knows the situation much better than we do.
In general, the idea that we are watching the sunset of Crusher was the first after the end of the fight. Kovalev didn't look bad, but right now it's just not clear why he should continue.
From the point of view of boxing, after three fights under the guidance of a new coach, we still did not see a fundamental difference between Kovalev and ourselves in the conditional first fight with Ward. Sergei was studied, but, even worse, it seems that he was pierced.
Rumors about the Russian’s not the strongest jaw have been around for a long time, but Crusher scored opponents faster than they could get to Sergey’s chin good hit. The first call came in the second fight with Ward, who is rather difficult to call a punching boxer. Today, Alvarez managed to put the Russian on the floor with one clean, albeit somewhat stray blow. By the way, Eleider is also not a puncher in the literal sense of the word - in 23 fights, the Colombian stopped 11 opponents. Today's victory allowed Alvarez to improve his percentage of early wins to 50 percent.
Worse is what happened after the first knockdown - a cloud of missed punches and two subsequent falls. Sergey has missed too much and these blows will definitely not do him good service in future fights. If they will.
After the fight, Kovalev was taken to the hospital to ascertain that nothing threatened his health. What can you say about a career.
The Russian should think hard about whether he needs a second fight with Alvarez. At the same time, you can definitely forget about unification fights. Even if Kovalev decides to fight Eleider for the second time, it will not happen until the end of this year, and Sergey will turn 36 in April. Time is working against Crusher, and there is still every reason to believe that Bivol, Beterbiev and Stevenson hit harder than Alvarez.
One night, like one blow, can change everything. Yesterday, we, perhaps Sergey himself, already clearly imagined the Russian derby with Dmitry Bivol in light heavyweight. If the WBA champion did a brilliant job, the WBO champion lost his title. And that dramatically changes the picture across the division. Until tonight, we were talking about three Russian-speaking champions in this weight. Right now we need to talk about three champions, one way or another connected with Yvon Michel- promoter of Adonis Stevenson, Artur Beterbiev and newly-champion Eleider Alvarez. It's funny how at one moment Stevenson suddenly became the main contender for the title of absolute world champion - after all, it will be quite simple to organize meetings for boxers from one promotional company. Now it can intervene Alexander Gvozdyk who will try out for the role of Eleider Alvarez, and, to be honest, he has good chances repeat the success of the Colombian.
Stevenson's defeat would be symbolic. Adonis won his belt in 2013 and did so two months before he traveled to Wales and came out as a world champion. At that moment, it was these two fighters who were supposed to reveal the best light heavyweight on the planet for the next five years. But this never happened. Today one of them did big step to the end of your journey.
Whatever decision is made, we must and will respect it. In an ideal world, I would like to see the Russian come back for a rematch with Alvarez, defeat him and walk away as a champion. A man with such a difficult history deserves this. But this is boxing, and very often parting with it is not very beautiful.
Future rival Fedor Emelianenko Chael Sonnen once, as usual, the best of all, described the end of a career in percussion types sports.
“Apart from Lennox Lewis, I can’t think of anyone who could get away at the peak. All our careers end the same way - lying face down with a sense of discouragement. And I'm going to follow suit. I don't want to leave anything behind me."
Eleider Alvarez shocked Sergey Kovalev (and the whole boxing world). Andre Berto defeated Devon Alexander via split decision. And Dmitry Bivol did not look very convincing in a fight with a strong opponent.
But let's take a closer look at how these fights went so as not to miss the most important boxing news over the past weekend.
What I liked. Well, we've got a new potential superstar in the light heavyweight division, and the name of that star is Eleider Alvarez, alias Storm. He entered the fight not as a favorite (betting a hundred on him, you could win $ 400), but in the seventh round the Colombian hit Kovalev a strong beat and then knocked him out. Alvarez spent several years waiting for a mandatory fight for the belt of Adonis Stevenson. After a while, he decided not to wait, but to focus on Kovalev's light heavyweight belt. Despite the fact that there are few knockouts on Alvarez's account, he knows how to hit, and hits hard. Ask Kovalev.
What I didn't like. Since Kovalev is 35 years old, the question should be asked if he can still compete in the light heavyweight elite and make a good impression. After two losses to Andre Ward (both controversial in their own way), there are many questions for Kovalev about whether he is still best fighter in this division. Two last fight Kovalev, in which he scored impressive victories over inexpressive opponents, gave boxing fans a false sense of security. If at the moment Kovalev was fighting Dmitry Bivol or Alexander Gvozdyk, he would look like a whipping boy.
Context
Match Kovalev-Ward: it's not about corruption
The Guardian 11/21/2016The future of Bernard Hopkins is in doubt
The Washington Post November 11, 201410 best punchers in the world of boxing
The Guardian 11/10/2013What does it mean. Before the fights, a lot of people were talking about the fact that Kovalev and Bivol would win, and then they would meet each other in a duel for the title. Now this won't happen anymore. But even if they fought, it wouldn't cost much. But Kovalev can take revenge by repeating the fight with Alvarez (there is a clause on such a revenge in the contract). And since he looked quite confident and comfortable for most of the fight, and was ahead of Alvarez on points until the fight was stopped, it is possible that Kovalev will try to take a second chance.
Other notable fights
For the second time in a row fortune (on points) was not on the side of Devon Alexander (27-5-1) as Andre Berto (32-5, 24 KOs) came out of an early knockdown and did enough to end it to get a split decision win. Two judges gave the victory to Berto (115-112), and one decided that Alexander should win (114-113). In the previous match, Alexander, who was on the title list in two weight categories, seemed to have won over Victor Ortiz, but the judges decided that there should be a draw. “I didn’t fight for a while, but it felt really good,” Berto told the Boxing Scene website. “He got away from a lot of my punches, so I started combining and punishing him. It’s an amazing feeling.” Welterweight is a vast category, and even with his win on Saturday, Berto is unlikely to be a favorite against any top ten boxer.
Dimitri Bivol (14-0, 11 KOs) confidently defeated Isaac Chilemba (25-6-2), and if it wasn't for one referee's dubious tally, Chilemba wouldn't even come close to him on points. But Bivol failed to win the sympathy of the fans. He just did enough to take down a solid fighter like Chilemba, but nothing more. But you remember that Kovalev in 2016 also looked rather ordinary against the background of Chilemba, and therefore it is quite possible that Bivol was simply trying to win without thinking about the effect on the audience. This fight can hardly be called a demonstration of all the talents of Bivol and his prospects in his category.
Although young featherweight Tevin Farmer (26-4-1, 5 KOs) had only 16.7% knockout wins at the start of the bout, he knocked down Billy Deeb (43-5) and ended up winning a landslide victory, winning his first world title. One of Farmer's possible rivals could be Gervonta Davis, who is one of the best boxers in the second featherweight category.
InoSMI materials contain estimates exclusively foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.
The rematch between Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward was positioned as the main fight of the summer, and its outcome was to determine the best boxer in the world, regardless of weight. V Lately reporting battle was only the third between the two the best boxers at the end of the year. In 2009, a venerable Filipino Manny Pacquiao knocked out Briton Ricky Hatton, and six years later, in the long-awaited fight with Floyd Mayweather, he himself was defeated.
Ward became the best boxer in the world in 2011, and Kovalev was awarded this title in 2014. But it is also important that the championship belts in three prestigious boxing versions (WBA Super, WBO and IBF) were at stake, which the Russian lost in November last year, losing by unanimous decision of the judges.
After that failure, Kovalev intended to get the right to revenge, and in April about the second part of the confrontation between the two best boxers light heavyweight category was officially announced. The rather controversial decision of the judiciary pissed off Sergei, and he began to put pressure on Ward, both through social networks and general press conferences. The Russian even sarcastically played on his ranking nickname Son of God, calling Olympic champion 2004 Son of Judges.
The closer the fight was, the more confident and ambitious statements Kovalev made. During the time between the two fights, Sergey promised the fans that they would see the real Crusher (the rank nickname of the Russian), who was not in the first fight, and also intended to “destroy” Ward and “complete it professional career". The verbal attack ended with a special entry on Kovalev's Instagram, where a photo of the American and his championship belts was published. “Ward says goodbye to the belts,” Sergey signed this photo.
Posted by Sergey KRUSHER Kovalev (@sergeykrusherkovalev) Jun 17, 2017 at 1:05 PDT
In the opening round, as is often the case in fights of this magnitude, the rivals were looking at each other, and already in the second three-minute period, the famous referee Tony Wicks gave the champion the first warning for hitting below the belt.
From the third round, Kovalev began to take the initiative to his gloves, but Ward is good just in defense, and his counterattacks are no less dangerous. The American spent the next segment of the fight noticeably better than the opponent, directing almost all blows to the target. But Sergey remained true to his strategy and continued to act as an aggressor.
As soon as the fight crossed the equator, Ward felt more confident with each new round and shocked the Russian in the eighth three-minute period with a strong blow on right. The champion began to finish off the challenger, alternating blows to the body with blows to the groin. And the referee in the ring, instead of punishing the American, stopped the fight and recorded the defeat of Kovalev, which caused everyone complete bewilderment.
“One hit was low, the other was borderline. I don't understand why the fight was stopped. A right hand to the head? Yes, it was not easy, but not so much that I could not continue the meeting. Everything was decided by a blow below the belt, ”the ex-world champion was perplexed. At the same time, Kovalev stressed that he wants to have a third fight with Ward.
The American paid tribute to his opponent after defeating him. “Kovalev has been a champion for a long time. He has been at the top for a long time. I always treat my opponents with respect. Kovalev is a great fighter. When you meet with such, you have to rise to a new level for yourself. Fortunately, today I succeeded. People say the fight was stopped too soon? It's not my fault and it's not my problem," Ward said.
Even if the fight had not been stopped, Kovalev needed to add in the remaining rounds, because at the time the fight was stopped, Ward won on the cards of two judges. Referee Dave Moretti and Glenn Feldman preferred the American (67:66), and Steve Weisfeld favored Kovalev (68:65).
Promoter Russian boxer Kathy Duva has already announced that a protest will be filed against the referee's decision. “We will file a protest on Monday and ask the commission to review replays with blows to the Russian below the belt. It's a shame," Duva said.
The judge's verdict caused indignation not only among the Kovalev team. The head of the World of Boxing company, Andrey Ryabinsky, believes that because of such decisions, boxing loses its meaning. “With such refereeing as in the Kovalev-Ward fight, boxing simply loses its meaning. This is already nonsense. Again, the whole world sees how Ward is pulled by the ears to "victory." Kovalev boxed badly. Yes. But I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about refereeing. This is some kind of lawlessness and disgusting already, ”wrote Ryabinsky on Twitter.
With such refereeing as in the Kovalev-Ward fight, boxing simply loses its meaning. This is already nonsense. Again the whole world sees how Ward is pulled by the ears to "victory"
— Andrey Ryabinsky (@Ryabinskiy)