Comments Thread For: Malignaggi: Andre Ward is The P4P Best, Could Lose To Kovalev

[MDPopescu]

That's why Mayweather forced Maidana to use pillow gloves right? cuz power doesn't matter.

Not only he forced him to wear pillows, but he did that with only 24 hours prior to the fight doe...

[Liondw]

I take my hat off to Ward for accepting an extremely dangerous fight in Kovalev. It's almost as risky as taking on a hard hitting heavyweight. Could go either way, and I think it's a closer fight than GGG-Canelo.

[goldenbear]

I think Ward needs 2 more fights before Kovalev

This will be an incredible fight. However Ward moving up in weight and only fighting 2 fights before fighting the most dangerous fighter at that weight is ill advised even as great as Ward is. I think he needs 3 in order to be razor sharp, which he'll need to be versus Kovalev. This is why they're pushing for a fall showdown to attempt to give them a competitive advantage. I would like to see Fonfara in Wards third fight then fight Kovalev in April 2017.

[MC Hammer]

I agree with you. Barrera's power shots were insanely slow. He looked like he was going in slow motion, and he threw a lot of extremely wide hooks.

But he still got marked up. I gave the Froch example to show visually what I meant. Either Ward's punch resistance is not what it used to be, or the 175s punch that much harder.. in either case, Ward took some damage which he did not against Kessler or Froch, two guys that are MUCH better than Barrera.

That's the criteria I used to say that his defense wasn't the same as it used to be. You can disagree, that is fine.

I don't want to go into a huge Golovkin vs Ward pissfest. There's too many of those already. Use the same criteria for Golovkin as I did for Ward. Resume and skill displayed.
Resume - Ward beat 2 elite guys 4-5 years ago and has no notable wins in the last 3 years. Golovkin has no elite wins but has beaten several legit top10 contenders.

Skill Displayed - Golovkin has looked more impressive than Ward. He barely ever loses a round and finishes his opponents.
If we assume that Wade and Barrera are about on the same level (personally I think Barrera was slightly better), we can judge their performance. Ward won a wide decision, losing 1 round on the cards. Golovkin easily stopped Wade in the 2nd.



That's fine, but that was 4 years ago. If this was 2012 or 2013, I'd agree with you. But it's not. Until Ward shows that he's still the same fighter he was 5 years ago, I'm not putting him anywhere near P4P #1.

Hell, Ward himself said that he would grade his performance a B-. If he can show in his next fight that he can still fight at the "A" level, I have no problems putting him in Top3 P4P.

We can't assume these two are remotely close. Wade was wearing a house arrest bracelet in the lead up to his fight and had beaten sam soliman controversially; Barrera is a heavily accomplished amateur who definitively beat a former champion who is still prime. Going into the Ward fight a lot of people here were claiming Ward was going to 'duck" him and that he would be to big for Ward. There were considerations of any possible way Wade would have beaten golovkin.

[Bronx2245]

That's why Mayweather forced Maidana to use pillow gloves right? cuz power doesn't matter.

It wasn't the soft gloves that were Maidana's problems, it was his soft belly!

[MC Hammer]

Not only he forced him to wear pillows, but he did that with only 24 hours prior to the fight doe...

Never seen 8oz pillows

[HeroBando]

We can't assume these two are remotely close. Wade was wearing a house arrest bracelet in the lead up to his fight and had beaten sam soliman controversially; Barrera is a heavily accomplished amateur who definitively beat a former champion who is still prime. Going into the Ward fight a lot of people here were claiming Ward was going to 'duck" him and that he would be to big for Ward. There were considerations of any possible way Wade would have beaten golovkin.

Jeff Lacy still prime? Or who are you talking about? And what amateur accomplishments? You mean in the juniors?

[monkeyboy]

No hate from me on this subject. Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for Kovalev as I'm a sucker for the crowd-pleasing knockout but Ward deserves all the respect in the world for taking the fight and he wouldn't do so if he didn't think he could win.

I'll always root for the puncher over a spoiler and it's marginally easier to be a defensive fighter than offensive but it doesn't belittle the skill or achievement.

Sometimes a win is the only goal.

I actually did not say I thought Kovalev will win, just that I WANT him to win.
It's too close to call and in Ward's favor it's easier to shut down, spoil and be defensive and Ward is very good at that when he chooses. I don't know that Kovalev's one note can overcome that.

[AKAcronym]

Jeff Lacy still prime? Or who are you talking about? And what amateur accomplishments? You mean in the juniors?

I think he means Murat? And it's funny how a lot of these guys (not saying him per se) will use amateur backgrounds when it's convenient but completely disregard them in other situations.

[MC Hammer]

Jeff Lacy still prime? Or who are you talking about? And what amateur accomplishments? You mean in the juniors?

I was talking about Karo Murat. And yeah the juniors, more than anything that Wade has done.