Damn, haters go Sherlock Holmes to dig up dirt His defense since has improved A LOT. I think because of his power it gets overlooked. Still whoops Stevenson.
Imo it's better to play the aggressor against Stevenson than to let him come at you. When Bellew actually went for it a couple of times, he troubled Stevenson, but when he fought on the backfoot he basically had no chance.
Whilst I agree that being aggressive would be a better idea (if you're good, not someone like Cloud) I don't think Bellew having no success boxing means anything because Bellew's not a good boxer.
I don't hold the amateurs high enough in regard to count it. Lennox Lewis lost amateurly to a lot of guys he went onto destroy. Pryor might have been Tommy Hearns, but they were kids it holds no merit in a professional ring like Hawk thought it did.
The fact that this was edited tells me he was just KD'ed.
It's recorded as a KO1 on Atoevs record but it's hard to say whether it woulda been considered a KO in a professional bout from that footage (guidelines are a lot more saferty oriented in the ams) - clearly Kovalev wasn't out cold, but the editing leaves it unclear as to how badly shaken he was.
FWIW I simply don't consider it a big deal - many of these ams are fighting 200 or 300+ fights - at some point it's not uncommon to be KDd or stopped, these things happen. It's only when they start to happen with regularity that it becomes and issue IMO.
For the same reason I don't consider Stevenson to be chinny either - the opinion on many boxing forums appears to be these days that if a fighter has ever been knocked down or out they have a suspect chin. In reality, anyone can be knocked out - IMO whether they are or not generally has far more to do with defensive responsibility than the differences in mandibular fortitude.
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