By Edward Chaykovsky
John David Jackson, trainer for WBO/IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (30-0, 26KOs), believes the lack of power in Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward (30-0, 15KOs) will be his downfall on November 19th, likely at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Ward, who dominated the action at super middleweight for several years, is looking to become the unified champion at 175-pounds in only his third fight at the weight. Kovalev is one of the most feared punchers in the sport.
Both boxers are among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. The fight will be carried by HBO Pay-Per-View.
Jackson expects Kovalev to go for the knockout in this fight and throw many hurtful punches to break Ward down. He says a fighter without power will not be capable of keeping Kovalev off of them in the ring.
The veteran trainer says Ward should have knocked out the overmatched Alexander Brand earlier this month. Ward hit Brand with everything, but never had him in serious trouble and settled in the end for a twelve round decision. He felt Ward's performance was lackluster and also admits that Kovalev's last outing, a decision win over Isaac Chilemba in Russia, was also flat.
"Andre should have knocked out Brand, he should have stopped him and the fact that he didn’t stop him alludes to what I’ve always said, Ward is not a power puncher. He’s a good boxer but a puncher he’s not and that’s going to be his biggest drawback," Jackson told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"I don’t think Sergey took Chilemba as serious as he should have, but that’s okay because he still did what he was supposed to do and he dominated the fight. It wasn’t one of his best performances but he did win. On the other hand, Brand was an opponent that Ward should have stopped. For whatever reason he didn’t, but he did what he was supposed to do and he won the fight."
