By Rick Reeno
T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas - Kathy Duva, CEO of Main Events, was very upset with the outcome of Saturday's fight - where her star boxer Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26KOs) lost a twelve round unanimous decision to Andre Ward (31-0, 15KOs).
With that victory, Ward walks away with Kovalev's IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight titles. All three judges handed Ward a razor-thin unanimous decision with three identical scores of 114-113. Ward had been down in the second round.
"I thought we won when I heard that [score of 114-113]. I thought we were robbed [when the winner was announced as Ward]. We've been down this road before. We did Whitaker-Chavez. We did Whitaker-Ramirez. We had one with Holyfield. My company has been involved in some of the greatest robberies of all-time and I don't know why. I'm so disappointed," Duva explained to BoxingScene.com.
Duva was very unhappy with the officiating and felt there was too much wrestling from Ward - without the intervention of the referee Robert Byrd. She felt Ward was so effective with his wrestling tactics that he should pursue a Mixed Martial Arts career in the UFC.
"It was a great fight. There was a lot of wrestling. I think Andre Ward has a great future in the UFC. I think he should be the one talking about fighting Conor McGregor, not Floyd Mayweather," Duva said. "I'm obviously not happy about the scoring and I'm obviously not happy about the referee. There was too much wrestling."
When the twelfth round was over, Duva was confident her man had done enough to get the victory. She had Kovalev winning seven rounds to five - with the second being a 10-8 round due to the knockdown.
"I thought he won seven to five and I thought he had a two point round in there, so I thought he was up by two to three points," Duva said.
As BoxingScene.com previously reported, Kovalev will exercise an immediate rematch clause.
