By Keith Idec
Now that Andre Ward and his trainer, Virgil Hunter, have watched his fight against Sergey Kovalev numerous times, they feel the same way they did the night of November 19.
They’re certain Ward won at least seven of the 12 rounds he boxed against Kovalev, who Ward beat by unanimous decision in their light heavyweight title fight. Each of the three judges – Nevada’s Burt Clements, New York’s John McKaie and Nevada’s Glenn Trowbridge – scored Ward-Kovalev exactly that way, seven rounds to five for Ward (114-113), minus one point from Ward for the knockdown Kovalev scored in the second round.
“Just like I thought it went the first time,” Ward said while discussing his rematch with Kovalev during a recent conference call. “I thought I won the fight by at least two rounds. But at the end of the day, there’s close rounds that you can call a swing round. I don’t know how this individual is judging the round or how they feel about it. But when you look at the scorecards, you know, I think the judges did a tremendous job because they were on one accord.
“When you have three different judges, who aren’t communicating throughout the course of a fight, who do this professionally – you look, and yeah, they had some rounds here and there that may have been different, but they have the same conclusion – whether it’s my fight or any other fight, I think you’ve gotta tip your hat to them.”
Unofficial CompuBox statistics showed that Ward-Kovalev was as close as the official scores indicated.
CompuBox credited Kovalev with connecting on 126-of-474 overall punches, only 10 more than Ward (116-of-337). CompuBox’s breakdown included Kovalev landing more power punches (78-of-232 to 61-of-169) and Ward landing more jabs (55-of-168 to 48-of-242).
Kovalev and his trainer, John David Jackson, argued during another recent conference call that Kovalev deserved to win at least eight of the 12 rounds they fought at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Like Ward, Hunter completely disagrees.
“I had Andre winning by two rounds for the simple reason that if you look at the third round – and I’ve actually challenged anyone, anyone, to sit with me and watch the fight and show me where Sergey Kovalev won the fight,” Hunter said. “And so far, no takers. Because I understand, when you have a personal fighter that you like, you’re only gonna see what they do. You’re not gonna look at what’s going on with the other person. So I understand that. But as Andre said, if you look at not only the scorecards and the consistency, but if you look at other people’s opinions – top people – their opinions … you’ll see that it was even in their opinions. So far the tendency is to highlight what people felt about what Sergey Kovalev did.
“So I concur with Andre. How can three judges who don’t have a phone, are not texting each other, ‘What did you have? OK, well I’m gonna put mine this way. What did you have? OK, I think I’ll put mine that way.’ And these are top judges and they called the fight the same. Sky Sports had us winning by two [rounds]. Are we going to put their opinion down? Right now, Great Britain is on top of the boxing game, for the simple reason that no matter what your nationality is, what color, they support theirs. They’re able to look at a fight the way it’s supposed to be looked at. They’re not looking at it in a way that favors one guy and you can see one guy. But in this particular fight, you had people coming out of their lanes. You have announcers that all of a sudden they’re better than the judges. You have writers who are judges, all of a sudden. And they never signed up or sat ringside and judged a fight in their life. But all of a sudden they’re experts. So we understand. And like Andre said, it’s our job to force you to look at the beating that’s gonna come and you have to accept it. And that’s just the way it’s gonna be.”
The 33-year-old Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), a 2004 Olympic gold medalist from Hayward, California, is a slight favorite over Russia’s Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) entering their rematch for Ward’s IBF, WBA and WBO light heavyweight titles Saturday night in Las Vegas. Their scheduled 12-round fight will headline HBO Pay-Per-View’s four-fight telecast from Mandalay Bay Events Center (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT; $64.99 in HD).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.