My thoughts on Ward/Kovalev without trolling. A long ass topic

i noticed in round one ward pushed across the ring with a 4 punch combination mostly hitting his gloves but he went flying it was as if kovalevs jab was breaking through wards guard with ease. ward has landed plenty of body shots from the get go but the stiff jab that hit ward cancelled all that out. ward was in a clinch and you could see him complaining to the ref... I was like oh crap this could be a verybad night for ward. it was like wards head movement was non existant from round one, then obviously he got timed in round two and got dropped i think after round 9 i had it 85-85 im pretty sure round 10 was the very very close round (cant remember) and could of gone either way.. but i scored it for kovalev making it ward 94 - 95 kovalev then i gave ward the last two rounds making it 114-113 in wards favour no round 10 wasnt close at all but this explains how you could possibly have ward winning. if you thought the easy kovalev roudns were close thes close ones that he won are obviously going to ward.

That only made them question if he's a psychopath or not. He's not but I think you can't get disrespectful to that extent, you have to know where to stop. Kovalev gets angry pretty easily, even though in the ring his agression is calculated. That was interesting hearing your opinion on Gvozdyk and Bivol, what you think of Shabranskyy? Yeah I don't like Kovalev's aura either. I rate him skillwise, but I always sense vulnerability in him, I don't think he can take as well as he gives. Shanranksyy is legit contender, he's solid but unless he gets lucky with a shot at a vacant belt or something like that, I don't see him being a champion in such a loaded division. Gvozdyk is the much better Ukrainian. Bivol is my favourite out of the bunch at 175 though, he's the most well-rounded.

:lol1: so you were trolling me in the official fight thread Anyway, good read, I agree with a lot of the things you're saying, especially about how Kova done a lot better than I was expecting. I said the same thing in my thread - http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=729052 But I don't think Kovalev is as boring as you say, he's said and done things that make him a hate figure for many people, like taunting his opponents while they're hurt That only made them question if he's a psychopath or not. He's not but I think you can't get disrespectful to that extent, you have to know where to stop. Kovalev gets angry pretty easily, even though in the ring his agression is calculated. I've checked your opinion, yes LHW is stacked with fresh talents, I think one of these young and hungry european fighters like Bivol or Beterbiev will take Kovalev or Stevenson out of the game soon and aging Ward little bit later

:lol1: so you were trolling me in the official fight thread Anyway, good read, I agree with a lot of the things you're saying, especially about how Kova done a lot better than I was expecting. I said the same thing in my thread - http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=729052 But I don't think Kovalev is as boring as you say, he's said and done things that make him a hate figure for many people, like taunting his opponents while they're hurt

I was like oh crap this could be a verybad night for ward. it was like wards head movement was non existant from round one, then obviously he got timed in round two and got dropped I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen with old version of Ward It amuses me when I hear people saying that Kovalev and Ward are in their prime. They're 32 and 33, and not the same fighters they're used to be. Ward is not that fast ninja who was a target that almost next to impossible to hit, who cleaned out whole division, this version of Ward was much slower, eating a lot of clean shots, maybe because he got older or because he moved up, I don't know, but he was getting hit a lot in that fight. And it's not the same version of Kovalev who was fighting with Pascal either, Kovalev injured his knuckle after that Pascal rematch and he had to wear bigger "Krusher" gloves against Chilemba to not hurt his knuckle and soften the punch. He said he'll think about surgery or some stuff like that, and that he's saving his favorite "Reyes" gloves for Ward, but he was wearing the same big "Krusher" gloves that night. They're both not the same. But it's still was high quality boxing from two veterans, where they were equally good, but in different aspects

I can see your points. From an American perspective, no one here knows anything about Dagestanis, half the people here think Russians are red atheists. I've been educating my friends here about Russians for years (and I still feel woefully uneducated in that area). Bloody Elbow (the MMA site) runs an article every month about the Dagestani people, the struggles, the MMA culture, the criminal elements, etc and it's been really great exposure for me. I don't think his heritage or culture will influence Americans at all. It's such a melting pot here that a guy like Kabib; energetic, aggressive, bust still well-mannered, goes over really well. They won't mind that he's Muslim because he's the "non-threatening" looking type of Muslim (if you know what I mean). And, his English is good enough to be understandable, but still endearing (Americans love broken English). If the UFC doesn't protect McGreggor from him, I think you;ll be surprised at how 'over' Nurma will be. Especially if he beats McGreggor, who a LOT Of people are tired of. I'm uncertain how Krusher will do after getting some of the more mainstream exposure he just received. The stoic, Clint-Eastwood type of thing gets respect, but it doesn't get people excited. I think he needs more 'evil' one-liners (which I think they were trying to force him to say recently) to get people hyped. If your angle is being a destructive force, you gotta have the shtick to go along with it. For Americans, "threatening" type of muslims are any muslims of Arabic ethnicites, since they associate them with terrorism Dagestanis are different when it comes to look, there's no such ethnicity as "Dagestani" - it's a large group of ethnicities (more than 80), mostly of Turkic origin but there's some asians among them. The interesting thing is their toughness don't come from poverty or struggles (like it is with some Russians, Kovalev or Provodnikov e.g), it's a cultural thing - they have money and success in business in Russia, since they always support each other financially, unlike Russians Anyway, republic that is smaller than West Virginia with 3 millions of population, produced more MMA fighters than probably half of South American countries combined (excluding Brazil), if that's not impressive then I don't know what is, considering that more than half of them stay in amateurs I remember how Diaz and Khabib crews went against each other, it started when Khabib punched guy from Diaz entourage (Martin Sano) in the mouth and it got messed up pretty quickly. The fans love that type of things. Some guy like Donald Cerrone might be charismatic for some people, but unlike Khabib and Diaz brothers, he's not walking around surrounded with wild ass crew who's ready to fight anywhere, to get involved in a situation like this, which might be a good promotion with the right approach. People don't like McGregor because they don't like any person who's on top. Same thing happened with Mayweather. It's just hardwired in human's brain to feel sympathy to underdogs and losers. When you get the power, you get the haters, it's always been like that - people get tired of your popularity fast. McGregor is not perfect, and I can't see his reign lasting long, UFC is way more unpredictable than boxing. Tony Ferguson is going after him too. But Tony Ferguson doesn't have a potential to be a star, so if I was Dana White I'd feed the mother****er to Khabib already, especially after his greedy ass started demanding for a share in UFC, announcing retirements and slowing down two stacked divisions

i noticed in round one ward pushed across the ring with a 4 punch combination mostly hitting his gloves but he went flying it was as if kovalevs jab was breaking through wards guard with ease. ward has landed plenty of body shots from the get go but the stiff jab that hit ward cancelled all that out. ward was in a clinch and you could see him complaining to the ref... I was like oh crap this could be a verybad night for ward. it was like wards head movement was non existant from round one, then obviously he got timed in round two and got dropped i think after round 9 i had it 85-85 im pretty sure round 10 was the very very close round (cant remember) and could of gone either way.. but i scored it for kovalev making it ward 94 - 95 kovalev then i gave ward the last two rounds making it 114-113 in wards favour

ni99a is you trying to recite the old Testament or some shyt? gtfo here i aint reading that novel fool. Why the **** you waste your time here? You're not telling me to gtfo in MY thread, I wasn't inviting your irrelevant ass here and not forcing you to read this ****.

Okay, some people were thinking I'm trolling around here. Well, I've had some fun with it (mostly, it's related to the fact that I have higher set of standarts for fighters from Russia/ex-USSR countries and never satisfied with their performances) but I always get back to rational thinking so I guess I have to explain my real thoughts on Kovalev/Ward fight with no BS. I think it was a draw Honestly, I don't like Kovalev as a person. Too stubborn and hot headed and he might come off as extremely ignorant at some moments. For me, he's far from being likeable. On the other hand, he's from Russia too and it feels like I'm supposed to root for him, right? See, but even considering the fact that I don't like him, there's something about him that I can't ignore - he's not a coward or *****. A lot of people seems to forget that he took this fight for almost no money (for the fight of this magnitude), faced a huge risk to take a loss when he could marinate this fight for few years, always fights on foreign soil in front of hostile crowd who get loud after the slight success of his opponents. A lot of people seems to forget that he came off poverty and that he was fighting for free for half of his career and never tasted the real money or good reward for his wins (and from that point, I think he never will). People just don't give him the credit for all these things or they forget about all of that. But I'm aware of this, even if I don't like him. I believe in karma, and I was thinking that sooner or later the karma for his temper will get back to him, in the form of some loss where he'd get exposed. For me, putting him on the p4p pedestal was not even in consideration because he seemed pretty vulnerable at some points of his career - like the first fight with Pascal and especially, in Chilemba fight. But his personality, the way he acts or looks - I don't like all of that and I can see why he wouldn't be likeable or appealing to American audience. In my opinion, there's only 2 Russian/ex-USSR fighters with the potential to be marketable - it's Khabib Nurmagomedov in UFC and, to a way lesser extent, Vasyl Lomachenko. The other fighters just don't know how to sell themselves because they're newcomers to the world of capitalism and they look like a bunch of stoic mother****ers with almost no charisma (like Beterbiev) who let the fights do the talking or there's a huge language barrier that doesn't allow them to express their thoughts completely or it makes them seem like dorks or borats (like Golovkin). Kovalev falls into that category of Russian fighters who you can't sell I don't have a certain opinion on Ward's personality but he was like a boxing god to me. The kind of fighter who calculate all possible risks, so when he takes the fight you're sure that he'll get the W. For me, he was better than Mayweather and I know that I might get red K for that, but I say that because unlike Mayweather, I've never seen Ward troubled in any of his fights before Kovalev (besides that Darnell Boone knockdown). He's the kind of fighter who knows how to look victorious in the ring and who tries to take ANY episode of the fight. Plus he's coming from that rare breed of fighters (like Mayweather or Lomachenko or Khabib in UFC) who's adjusted to the sport since the early childhood and lives his whole life like it's a training regime, in permanent preparation for the fight. I always give advantage to the fighters with the background like that. Not to mention that despite that he had some controversial fight when he was in amateurs, the one that he certainly didn't win, he never tasted a legitimate loss. Ward has that winner mentality and you can't play mind games with him By the way, both Kovalev and Ward have that champion's mentality and they don't like to even give their oppnents a slight opportunity to dictate the fight. In my opinion, this is exactly what made their fight so close, not their skills. After the end of this fight, they're both were convinced that they were controlling each other if you check their interviews. Ward said Kovalev was doing exactly what he expected him to do and Kovalev said that he never lost his control in this fight. So that mentality made the fight to be close. On the other hand, people was expecting it to be a 50/50 fight and that's exactly what it turned out to be (so yeah, it's supposed to be a draw since both of the fighters never had the noticeable advantage) I really don't like watching Ward's fight. There's only one Ward's fight that I can rewatch - it's fight with Chad Dawson and there's only one fight of Kovalev that I can watch again - it's rematch with Pascal. They're both not the most entertaining fighters around for me and I understand it when people say stuff like "Ward is too boring" and that watching Ward's fights is like a reading long ass instructional book and watching Kovalev's fights is like reading colourful entertaining comics. But anyway, you can't ignore the fact that Ward always doing whatever it takes to win. It doesn't matter if it's entertaining or not, but he always win. In other words, he was the perfect candidate for #1 p4p spot considering that he dominated all his opponents in the pro career to the point where you barely can find any episode of any Ward's fight where his opponents looked better than him I felt like Ward is just unstoppable in the ring. For me, Kovalev had no chance, not even a chance for lucky punch because he's never been a 1 punch KO artist, he need to land the clean combination in order to hurt his opponent and that's an incredibly difficult task when you deal with Ward But I couldn't believe myself, this was a first time I've seen Ward being so vulnerable in the fight, and being challenged to the point where his win is controversial and not undeniable like previous ones. That never happened before, we talk about the fighter who was winning every episode of all his fights. I thought Kovalev is a good boxer, but too basic and simple for a versatile fighter like Ward so I wasn't expecting this fight to be even competetive. I couldn't believe myself, but it was so ****ing close. In the mid-rounds I've realized that both of these fighters won't get the first spot in my personal p4p list because of the fact that in my opinion, the p4p king supposed to dominate all his competition. He isn't supposed to be engaged in competitive close fights, he should be few levels above than the rest of the boxing world. I thought Ward is that kind of fighter but I was wrong. It's still Roman Chocolatito and Ward with Kovalev shares 2# and 3# spots in whatever order. Draw would be the most logical and rational decision due to the fact that both sides wouldn't agree with defeat, and both Kovalev and Ward would have every right to disagree if the judges were favoring the opposite side It's hard to judge the fight based on the fact that both fighters are great at completely different aspects of the game. Kovalev landed more punches and his offensive was way more effective than all attempts of previous Ward's opponent. You can't call the aggression to be "ineffective" when the fighter lands more punches than his rival. Even if he's not as accurate as the other fighter, he still lands more. But it feels like the fighters needs to have mother****ers getting taken out on a stretcher nowadays, to have the fans thinking that their offensive was effective. On the other hand, Ward was dictating the pace of the fight and he was controlling the distance better. By the way, this is the best thing about American school of boxing - American boxers are great at controlling the distance - Ward, Mayweather or Crawford are good examples of that. This is their biggest advantage. Lomachenko is probably only one European boxer who control the distance like he bleeds red, white and blue So both of the fighters were great in their own way, but not great enough to dominate the fight and get an undeniable win. A draw would be the most logical result that would have both sides more satisfied with the decision But anyway, Kovalev was supposed to understand that he had to do more than that. When you fight on a foreign soil, you can't afford to have a CLOSE fight, it's a taboo. You're supposed to be two times better. Plus he wasn't suposed to try to wrestle with Ward which got him more tired at the end of the fight and Kovalev has problems with stamina They're not on the 1 spot of my p4p list ONLY because of the fight was close, they share #2 and #3 spots. I'm still waiting for a boxer who will take over the sport like a ****ing Napoleon. Now I can say that Andre Ward is far from Mayweather and Kovalev is not a Mike Tyson either. You can say that Mayweather got some competitive performances too, yeah, but Andre Ward and Kovalev are 32 and 33, they're probably past their prime already. Anyway, a good fight but I wouldn't be interested in watching rematch because I've already seen that matchup of styles. Even though I was serious when I've said that Kovalev career might be dead and finished from this point if he won't get a rematch. When I've heard that there's a rematch clause, I've suspected that the fight will be controversial, and it will turn into a big ****ing "Drama show" with three fights. Why not to use that opportunity, when you can sell the same fight THREE times instead of only one? See, if it wasn't controversial and if Ward was dominating Kovalev or Kovalev KO'd Ward early, you wouldn't be excited about the rematch. But since the fight was close, you're all hyped up and want to see it again. I can't exclude the possibility that behind the scenes, Kovalev and Ward probably got told to make the fight as close as possible. Would you turn down the offer to earn three times more money than you were supposed to get from this fight? I wouldn't. So we have a fight with no winners or losers I'd appreciate all green K's for a message this long Well, it wasn't a draw and we don't need a novel either.

Khabib has great potential to be marketable, but not to American fanbase. And here's two reasons why He's Dagestani muslim, and therefore he represents another side of Russia that never existed in American media before. It's actually made him to get a huge amount of Muslims fans all over the world, mostly, from Asia. Even if casual american fan doesn't know who Khabib is and keep idolize McGregor , Khabib still got 20 times more followers on instagram than Eddie Alvarez who was a former champ before McGregor fight. That's saying something. Even if you can't sell his personality to an average American viewer (who doesn't have nothing in common with a Dagestani muslim from Russia), you can be sure you can sell him to viewers around the world, especially Asian ones Second reason - Khabib is almost the epitome of every negative stereotype about Dagestanis that exists in Russia. They're known to be super-confident (not a bad thing), ready to get agressive at every moment to the point when some owners of Russian nightclubs tell their bouncers to not let them in, instigating and starting a lot of conflicts just for the fun of it. It's a kind of culture where a man would get laughed at for cleaning home, cooking or some stuff like that, because it's "a woman's thing". An average Dagestani outalpha'd average Russian with ease, like it's the easiest thing to do, to the point where that Russian would get an irrational fear of him Even if some of these stereotypes are negative and not always true, that mindset works perfectly for Khabib, when he's trying to **** around with everybody, going against Dana White with no fear, yells at him while beating MJ like "Give me your son". I mean, he's funny and marketable without even trying. These "If Sambo was easy it would be called jiu-jitsu" or "Khabib knows" t-shirts, "Khabib airlines" or pushing the fighters at weigh-ins just for the wrong look (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWn_9i0cMAU). I start reading random article about Khabib and just start laughing because he comments possible Conor's retirement (because Conor waits his first child), saying that Conor is pregnant. You can't deny that it's the perfect type of behaviour to attract fans, the behaviour that can pass through any language barrier, and it's just entertaining. But Dana White's favoritism is out of control, and an Irish christian guy is way easier to sell to an average American. Ronda Rousey and McGregor benefits from that favoritism. But like I've said Khabib got some solid following from Muslims all over the world already and to make him marketable you have to rely on that Muslim fanbase I can see your points. From an American perspective, no one here knows anything about Dagestanis, half the people here think Russians are red atheists. I've been educating my friends here about Russians for years (and I still feel woefully uneducated in that area). Bloody Elbow (the MMA site) runs an article every month about the Dagestani people, the struggles, the MMA culture, the criminal elements, etc and it's been really great exposure for me. I don't think his heritage or culture will influence Americans at all. It's such a melting pot here that a guy like Kabib; energetic, aggressive, bust still well-mannered, goes over really well. They won't mind that he's Muslim because he's the "non-threatening" looking type of Muslim (if you know what I mean). And, his English is good enough to be understandable, but still endearing (Americans love broken English). If the UFC doesn't protect McGreggor from him, I think you;ll be surprised at how 'over' Nurma will be. Especially if he beats McGreggor, who a LOT Of people are tired of. I'm uncertain how Krusher will do after getting some of the more mainstream exposure he just received. The stoic, Clint-Eastwood type of thing gets respect, but it doesn't get people excited. I think he needs more 'evil' one-liners (which I think they were trying to force him to say recently) to get people hyped. If your angle is being a destructive force, you gotta have the shtick to go along with it.

Good and fair post from you ,also idk if P4P number 1 fights should all be shut outs, it would mean that he dont challange himself or fight in weak era A p4p king doesn't fight bums, he makes elite fighters look like bums. Mayweather and Pacquiao made great fighters look helpless in their fights. But I understand your point as well, and definiteny not against it

Read most of it (sorry, is was looong) but you made some great points. One being Nurma in UFC and marketability. The greatest point about Dre and Sergey being like Billy goats bumping horns, not relenting one bit. So many punches flew simultaneously because they refused to let the other dictate and get off first. They really refused to fold or give an inch. I also agree that there is tremendous rematch value. I hope the #'s were good so that they can really pump up the rematch, give boxing a boost. Good post, man. Khabib has great potential to be marketable, but not to American fanbase. And here's two reasons why He's Dagestani muslim, and therefore he represents another side of Russia that never existed in American media before. It's actually made him to get a huge amount of Muslims fans all over the world, mostly, from Asia. Even if casual american fan doesn't know who Khabib is and keep idolize McGregor , Khabib still got 20 times more followers on instagram than Eddie Alvarez who was a former champ before McGregor fight. That's saying something. Even if you can't sell his personality to an average American viewer (who doesn't have nothing in common with a Dagestani muslim from Russia), you can be sure you can sell him to viewers around the world, especially Asian ones Second reason - Khabib is almost the epitome of every negative stereotype about Dagestanis that exists in Russia. They're known to be super-confident (not a bad thing), ready to get agressive at every moment to the point when some owners of Russian nightclubs tell their bouncers to not let them in, instigating and starting a lot of conflicts just for the fun of it. It's a kind of culture where a man would get laughed at for cleaning home, cooking or some stuff like that, because it's "a woman's thing". An average Dagestani outalpha'd average Russian with ease, like it's the easiest thing to do, to the point where that Russian would get an irrational fear of him Even if some of these stereotypes are negative and not always true, that mindset works perfectly for Khabib, when he's trying to **** around with everybody, going against Dana White with no fear, yells at him while beating MJ like "Give me your son". I mean, he's funny and marketable without even trying. These "If Sambo was easy it would be called jiu-jitsu" or "Khabib knows" t-shirts, "Khabib airlines" or pushing the fighters at weigh-ins just for the wrong look (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWn_9i0cMAU). I start reading random article about Khabib and just start laughing because he comments possible Conor's retirement (because Conor waits his first child), saying that Conor is pregnant. You can't deny that it's the perfect type of behaviour to attract fans, the behaviour that can pass through any language barrier, and it's just entertaining. But Dana White's favoritism is out of control, and an Irish christian guy is way easier to sell to an average American. Ronda Rousey and McGregor benefits from that favoritism. But like I've said Khabib got some solid following from Muslims all over the world already and to make him marketable you have to rely on that Muslim fanbase

Good and fair post from you ,also idk if P4P number 1 fights should all be shut outs, it would mean that he dont challange himself or fight in weak era

Read most of it (sorry, is was looong) but you made some great points. One being Nurma in UFC and marketability. The greatest point about Dre and Sergey being like Billy goats bumping horns, not relenting one bit. So many punches flew simultaneously because they refused to let the other dictate and get off first. They really refused to fold or give an inch. I also agree that there is tremendous rematch value. I hope the #'s were good so that they can really pump up the rematch, give boxing a boost. Good post, man.