By Edward Chaykovsky
Abel Sanchez, best known as the trainer of IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, believes Sergey Kovalev did more than enough to defeat Andre Ward last November at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Sanchez and Golovkin were both ringside, as they watched Ward get off the floor in the second round to win a twelve round unanimous decision with three cards of 114-113 from the judges. Ward gave Kovalev his first career defeat and captured the WBA, WBO and IBF light heavyweight belts.
The fight was conducted weeks ago, but the controversy continues to rage on over which fighter actually deserved to win that night.
Sanchez felt it was a clear victory for Kovalev by a few rounds. He agrees with the majority of observers who felt it was an ugly fight to watch. There was a lot of wrestling, a lot of holding, and not enough puncher or activity - especially in the later rounds.
Sanchez had trained Kovalev in the early part of his career. The Russian boxer eventually parted ways with him and hooked up the man who led him to the light heavyweight crown, John David Jackson of Florida.
"I thought Kovalev won, I thought Kovalev won by at least a couple of rounds and I said it after the fight. I thought it was the kind of fight that I didn’t want to see. The first six rounds were okay but the last six rounds were a wrestling match. You shouldn’t be able to win a fight by wrestling, this is not wrestling, it’s boxing. That’s how Andre fights and it’s not a pleasing style but for some reason he convinced the judges and they gave it to him, but I don’t think he won the fight," Sanchez told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
