By Miguel Rivera
Former four division world champion Juan Manuel Marquez has often debated the subject of who is better - Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26KOs) or Gennady Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs).
Golovkin is the king of the middleweights, with the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC titles around his waist. Kovalev, up until this past Saturday night, had the WBO, WBA, IBF world titles at light heavyweight.
Kovalev suffered his first professional defeat at at the hands of Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward, who survived a second round knockdown to win a close twelve round unanimous decision. The three ringside judges had identical tallies of 114-113 for Ward.
Marquez watched Kovalev vs. Ward very closely at the T-Mobile Arena.
In his opinion, Ward controlled the entire second half of the contest. He felt Kovalev was unable to make the necessary adjustments.
"[After the Ward fight], it appears that [Golovkin is better than Kovalev]. [Kovalev would] throw punches in combinations with speed, very accurate, and with plenty of power. Now we saw a Sergey Kovalev who was different from a lot of other fights. Andre Ward, with the style that he brought in the ring, practically neutralized him in the second half of the fight. So I think Gennady Golovkin is even better than Kovalev," said Marquez.
They called Ward vs. Kovalev - "Pound for Pound." A lot of experts, before the fight, said the winner of that contest would have a strong position to be named the best pound for pound fighter in boxing.
The current fighter viewed as the top pound for pound boxer in the world, on most respectable lists, is WBC super flyweight champion Roman 'Chocolatito' Gonzalez.
Is Ward now the pound for pound king? Marquez asks a very easy question.
"Now I have to ask a question: which fighter would you rather watch? 'Chocolatito' Gonzalez, who is a spectacular fighter who is always throwing punches.... or Andre Ward like the one we saw [on Saturday] ... [Ward] does not run, but he wins fights by throwing jabs."
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