Comments Thread For: Fighting Words - Kovalev-Ward: The Fight is Over, The Fighting Isn't

[Bronx2245]

I saw Kovalev 115-112, however I do feel like the momentum of the fight shifted in Round 5, and Kovalev didn't respond to Ward's body attack! It was a good fight, but not good enough for me to pay $65 to watch! I'd pay to watch LSC vs. Frampton, or Salido vs. Vargas, however Ward vs. Kovalev was a close fight, but not a great fight! I think Ward vs. GGG @ 168 would've been a much better fight!

[HAY-B]

Brother I read it. Diverse opinions are great, but here's the thing, I haven't seen ONE diverse opinion about the Hooker-Perez scorecards. EVERYONE I've seen agrees Perez got straight robbed in favor of the Roc Nation fighter.

So if everyone admits the judges were bought off by, or otherwise in the tank for, Roc Nation for that fight, why is everyone dancing around the possibility that they were also bought off for the Kovalev-Ward fight? As if Roc Nation would go to the trouble to protect Maurice Hooker, but not their star fighter Andre Ward?

Diverse opinions are great, but we have to be realistic, as well. Boxing is a dirty game. The judges already stole one fight on saturday for Roc Nation, so you have to be very, very naive to think Ward getting the decision vs Kovalev was 100% down to "diverse opinions" and "subjective scoring," and not something else. Very, very naive. And brother, I don't think you're that naive. I think you've probably been told Kovalev was a racist, you've probably gotten into arguments with Kovalev fans on NSB, and you're probably enjoying seeing them get what you feel is their just due, even if it didn't come from a fair decision. I guess that's human nature (although I'd like to think honor is human nature too...), but I'm just saying, don't act like you're that naive, I know you're smarter than that brother. There was shady **** going on that night with the judging and those judges don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

By the way have you rewatched round 10? Be curious to hear who you thought won that round after rewatching. Peace.

I agree Perez was robbed, but just playing devils advocate, why do you assume Roc nation paid off the judges instead of the casino's influencing the outcome of the fight based on the amount of money the casinos would have lost with a Perez victory? I'm just not willing to believe a promoter would pay off a judge in a fight of that caliber. However it's easy for me to believe that a judge's scorecard may be used to save or make the sportsbook in NV money. All gaming is in favor of the house. And I'm willing to bet a lot of action was laid on a Hooker victory with better than average or long shot odds on a Perez upset to entice gamblers to lay money on Perez. However a majority draw allows the sportsbook to rake in just about all the dough except for the action laid on the over / under and a majority draw / draw. Just and opinion. I would like to here your thoughts.

[Lou Cipher]

Awesome win for Krusher.

[cameltoe]

Part of the reason everyone has their ass in their hands about the scoring is the incredibly biased HBO commentary. Lederman's card was a disgrace, he wouldn't give Ward an inch and was favoring Kovalev even when he did nothing. Lampley couldn't have favored Kovalev any more if he'd bent over for him.

Once again HBO favour the puncher, they literally do not pick up on the sense of momentum, control of pace and tempo, the inside work and the subtleties, and the building feeling that Ward started to control the fight from the mid rounds. They only seem to see hard punches, and even if the last one landed 3 rounds ago they still give the guy credit. The only one who actually seemed to give Ward any credit- and he had to disagree with his fellow pundits to do so- was Kellerman. He at least acknowledged Ward's successes.

Sky Sports in the U.K. had Ward winning the fight and Paulie made a really good point about the fight seeming to drain from Kovalev as the rounds went on. Ward took over mentally.

I thought it could have gone either way, it felt to me like Ward had the momentum so I felt he did enough to eek it out, but a draw could've been fair. If it had gone to Kovalev by a wide decision I'd have felt that was giving too much credit to his strong opening rounds, carrying a bias mentality across all rounds and wouldn't have reflected the whole fight.

[cameltoe]

Awesome win for Krusher.

Yeah, just as awesome as that Vitali Klitschko win over Lennox Lewis.

[SteveM]

David you just waxed poetic about the alleged subjectivity of this fight even though it came right after a fight where EVERYONE agrees the judges didn't get it "subjectively" wrong, they were BOUGHT OFF or otherwise corrupt in favor of the other Roc Nation fighter on the card.

So David, honestly, maybe you were told to write this to help cover for the judges, but writing an article about boxing judging in this fight without mentioning the evidence that judges on this night were clearly bought off makes you look like a shill.

Additionally, even Ward fans agree Kovalev won the 10th round, so how did all three judges give it to Ward? There is subjectivity, but then there is "if we give Kovalev one more round, he will win, so we have to give every round to Ward from now in, even ones he clearly loses like round 10."

How gullible do you think people are? Disagreeing is one thing, but clear evidence of corruption in favor of the same promotional company twice on the same night goes beyond any reasonable disagreement. Now you can say corruption wasn't quite as clear, at least not in as many rounds, in the Kovalev-Ward fight as it was in the Hooker-Perez fight, and that's fine, but you can't separate the two.

I mean, if you are trying to figure out who committed two serial robberies in real life where the robber leaves the same signature at each crime scene, and you find a suspect named Jonathan Schlooper whose fingerprints, hair, and car is at the first crime scene, but only his fingerprints are at the second crime scene, that doesn't mean you go "well you can't really say it was him the second robbery, because only his fingerprints were there, there wasn't nearly the overwhelming evidence as the first robbery." No, you connect the dots. The evidence from the first crime scene informs you about what happened at the second crime scene.

So David, I have been a huge fan of your work in the past, but I am very disappointed in this column, and I hope you write another one that actually touches on the high likelihood of corruption, not disagreement, but corruption, on this night. I want you to ask why Hooker got the draw against Perez after losing every round on everyone's scorecard? Why did one judge only have Kovalev up 4-2 after he dominated the first 6, but then give Ward every close round the second half of the fight? Why did all three judges give Ward round 10 when that was an obvious Kovalev round? You really think that's just down to disagreement?

See you looked at it from a macro level. You looked at it in hindsight, how you could find 7 rounds for Ward even if you gave Kovalev round 10. But that's not what happened on the night. The way the judges had it, when round 10 came around, if they had given it to Kovalev, he would have won, period. So they didn't have the benefit of moving around various rounds. If they wanted Ward to win, they had to give him round 10. And they did! Even though Kovalev won it clear. So why don't you focus more on that? THAT screams corruption to me. And I hope you actually write about that because right now it feels like you are covering for the judges big time.

I'm sorry, but do boxing judges really deserve the benefit of the doubt 60 minutes after Hooker-Perez ended? Come on.

If people say that Oscar has no-one apart from Canelo, can the same be said with Jay-Z and Ward?

I am seeing corruption everywhere - politics, municipalities, soccer matches, - why is boxing likely to be different especially when Jay-Z has invested how much?

Here's the other thing - the judges are paid so little that they are wide open to be bribed. That is all wrong. To digress slightly >> the same with the President really - he should be held to higher standards and paid a multi - million dollar salary so he has less inclination to be bought by corporates .

Judges should be paid a good minimum and get a percentage of high revenue fights - if that means slightly less money for the boxers I am for it as the Hooker fight leaves you feeling queasy in the pits of your stomach.

[ruedboy]

As a judge scores a fight, he's aware of which fighter is ahead or if the fight is even.
Ward won the decision because he won 6 of 6 of the final rounds on 2 cards and 5 of 6 on the other.
A judge would know he had given the challenger several close rounds in a row and it would seem human nature to look to give champ a close round or two.
I realize that "The challenger has to take the title", isn't supposed to come into the equation but judges are human.
Boxing is probably the hardest sport to judge. and people will disagree. The fact that Ward needed to win every round in the second half of the fight to avoid a loss and he did it by winning every close round except 1, just seems a bit scripted.

[b00g13man]

Pretty good article

[Zen_Fighter]

Great article! I had Kovalev winning a close decision and certainly wouldn't call Ward's victory a robbery. Some of the rounds could have clearly gone either way and that is just a matter of opinion. I liked Kovalev's aggression and for the most of the fight he was the one moving forward and pressing the action. Effective aggressiveness counts a lot in my scorecard, but I would guess all the scoring criteria should be considered equal? Can't wait for the rematch!

[Gillie]

Great read and perfectly summarizes how I feel.

There's no robbery, just a bunch of close rounds. It's easier to give the fight to Kovalev due to the number of the close rounds and his dominance in the beginning of the fight. Ward got almost all of the swing rounds in his favor and thus won. There are many possibly reasons why the judges decided to give Ward those close rounds.

Some people will say it's because they were all Americans. It's possible.
Others will point to the crowd's reaction, which was almost entirely pro-Ward and anti-Kov.
A few will say it's because Ward deserved them.

I have a personal theory of why Kovalev got virtually shut out in 2nd half of the fight. It has everything to do with expectations. We all know that Ward is the technician and Kovalev is the puncher. When Kovalev performed like Kovalev, the judges swung in his favor. As soon as he played Ward's game, no matter how successful he was, judges assumed that Ward won those rounds because that's what they expected. After all, how could Kovalev hope to match Ward on the inside and throwing counters?


You can write 1000 articles arguing for one thing or another. Fact is it was a fight decided by 1 point. I scored the fight a draw, and that's what it was. The rematch will tell us everything we need to know. Either Ward makes the adjustments to make it look easy, or Kovalev will show that he's no longer playing. Rematch will be 5 times better than the original!

One hell of a good post bro! One of the few that doesn't attack either fighter and appears pretty objective. Most people either have Ward winning closely or Kovalev winning comfortably. Once again it's amazing how so many can watch the same thing yet see nothing the same. Peace.