Comments Thread For: Duva: Punch Stats Show Kovalev Beat Andre Ward

[Boxing Logic]

punchstats also show Mayweather dominated Manny..but the same posters who are now slamming Ward didnt care about that

And the same posters now slamming punch stats were the ones claiming they were gospel during the Mayweather-Pacquiao debate.

Funny how life works eh? I hope we can all laugh at that. Things go both ways.

Now, here is the difference. Compubox favors slick, defensive boxers. It has an inherent bias towards that style. So for Mayweather to dominate in compubox, is expected. Ward was the #1 compubox fighter in the world going into the Kovalev fight, showing compubox favors his style too. So for Kovalev to beat him in compubox is actually very significant.

Additionally, compubox is scored by personnel operators. In Vegas, Mayweather was the hometown fighter. So was Ward. So if either Mayweather or Ward wins in compubox in Vegas, you can't trust its objectivity, because Vegas is in the bag for both of them. But for Kovalev to beat Ward on compubox, which Ward normally excels at, and in Vegas, where the commission clearly wanted Ward to win, is much more significant than vice versa.

See the difference? Now I know some of you are going to say "so what, if the fighters I like do good in compubox, it don't count, but if the fighters you like do good in compubox, it counts. How is that fair?" You're right in terms of analysis it doesn't give you equal footing to use compubox in these specific circumstances to push your argument. But what it is is based on reality. Mayweather and Ward got the advantage by the commission in real life because of favoritism. The upshot of that is that fans can no longer use those people that favor them to draw positive analysis of them from, because we know they are in the tank for them.

So yeah, Pacquiao fans argued compubox was misleading with Mayweather-Pacquiao. And they had good reason to think that. Likewise, compubox now is if anything exaggerating Ward's performance because they are scoring all those mini-hooks to the body inside as "power" shots just as much as Kovalev's clean power shots to the head from outside. If anything, compubox as a system, especially in Vegas, is still biased towards Ward, and yet Kovalev outperformed him. You cannot ignore that.

So really, it's not hypocritical like it appears from the outside once you analyze the details. The real hypocrisy is Floyd/Ward fans saying compubox matters when it benefits Floyd, and now saying it don't matter, when the truth is it's biased towards Floyd and Ward. So yeah, when it shows Floyd dominated Pacquiao, that's misleading, but when Kovalev does so well he even outperforms the bias of compubox is Vegas and beats Ward in compubox, that is very, very telling. That might seem unfair to Ward or Floyd fans, but as I explained, it's the truth.

[Boxing Logic]

Plus fights are scored round by round so if Kovalev landed 10 more (according to compubox) punches over a 12 round fight and dominated the 5 rounds he won it would stand to figure more than that margin of 10 was built up in those 5 rounds.

That leaves 7 where Ward edged him out.

If people want to talk about how boxing should be scored differently alright I can dig that, but with the way fights are currently scored Ward won not by how fights should be scored differently in the future.

How about just scoring the fight, and refereeing the fight, based on the rulebook? Rounds where the margin is one or two punches for either fighter go to the aggressor. Now you can say "but what if they're not the EFFECTIVE aggressor?" but the whole point is that if the aggressor has landed only 1 less punch all round than the guy he's chasing, that means he is just as effective, except for one punch, as the guy he's chasing. "Effective" does not mean landing 100 punches, it is relative. So if you are taking on the extra responsibility of making the fight and being the aggressor, and you still land 9 punches to your opponent's 10, then you are just as effective as your opponent, thus the effective aggressor.

That's just following the rulebook. By that definition, Kovalev won every close round. And how about refereeing by the rules? Imagine if the ref broke the fighters every time either one held. Quick break, back to outside fighting where Kovalev was bossing the fight. Instead of letting Ward hold and hit for 20 seconds at a time on the inside, you give him 2 seconds before you can reach them, and then break them. The fight takes place on the outside 40% more of the time where Kovalev was doing way better, and you have a 11-1 fight instead 8-4, right?

Like this isn't asking to change boxing rules to favor punchers, even if that would probably help the sport's popularity. This is simply enforcing the actual rules of boxing. I think everyone agrees if that had happened on saturday night, Ward would have struggled to win more than 2 rounds. Now maybe you can say on a different night, with more adjustments, he could learn to beat Kovalev from the outside. But last saturday, the way Ward was struggling outside of holding and hitting, he would have been dominated all fight if the ref just enforced the rules by the book.

And I mean, are Ward fans really such fan boys that they're going to advocate against enforcing the rules? I mean do you guys want baseball umpires to call strikes that are 3 feet off the plate? Do you want basketball referees to allow tackle football during basketball games? What other sport would you like referees to not enforce the rules? But because you like Ward, you think it's okay? That's just ridiculous man.

Anyway, I still had Kovalev winning. I thought he landed the cleaner, bigger shots in the majority of rounds, and he was the effective (compared to Ward) aggressor, and the ring general, and since Ward landed less punches on him, his defense was better too. He actually came forward against the faster guy, walking into his shots, and still managed to get hit less. That is great defense.

So that's how I had it. Plus Kovalev had the knockdown. Compubox had Kovalev landing 20% more power shots than Ward, but even that is misleading... in favor of Ward. Most of Ward's power shots were body shots, which are effective slowing down your opponent but do not hurt them or count as much in scoring as nice head shots, where Kovalev dominated. Ward literally landed less than 10 power shots to the head all fight, in 12 rounds. Less than 1 per round. If your style is the master boxer but you are landing less than one power shot to your opponent's head per round, I'm sorry you are not having a good performance at all. I do give Ward credit for his body work but not all "power" shots are created equal and a lot of those inside body shots were only half extension.

So yeah, Kovalev won that fight. But like everyone, I would love to see it again, so long as it's next. If they make us wait a year for closure on this I'm just going to say **** it. It's not worth it. I just hope Ward looks out for the fans and his legacy on this one, and doesn't pull some bull**** like dropping the belts and going back down to 168 or something. We need that rematch in March at the latest.

[Boxing Logic]

Rematch is the only thing that can settle the debate of who won the fight....but honestly,Kovalev won round 10...I have watched round 10 for more than 5 times and I am convinced Kovalev won it but I dont know why all the judges gave it to Ward.I suspect the jeers from the pro-Ward crowd had a factor.

What do you think influences judges more, jeers, or dolla dolla bills? It's boxing. Maybe we should just assume the most obvious explanation: corruption. Otherwise how do you explain the Perez-Hooker decision too?

[Pigeons]

If you remove the 2nd round, which everyone scored 10-8 for Kovalev, Ward outlanded Kovalev by 3 punches over the other 11 rounds.

6 rounds had a 1 punch landed difference and 2 more rounds had a 2 punches landed difference. Razor close fight. Razor close decision. Let's do it again!

[1g5a22]

Face it folks, the guy on the floor with a face like a rotten avocado and who is probably now under medical supervision in some private clinic is p4p number one dohh and the rightful winner. Christmas came early for a Svendre...

[bojangles1987]

You don't need punch stats to make that case. Honestly, punch stats are worthless in a vacuum. Especially here, where the punch stats are quite close.

[Boxing Logic]

Kov won round 10 and you could give him 12 as well....bottom line is the judges gave Ward EVERY close round which you don't see often. They must have liked something he did just a bit more than what Kov was doing....

Why not just go with the most likely explanation? They liked something Roc Nation or HBO was giving them to make Ward the winner, that's what they liked. This is a corrupt business. We always try to explain away these weird, "unlikely" (as Kellerman put it) decisions, saying how strange they are, or how did that possibly happen?

How the **** you think it happens? It's boxing. Fights get rigged all the time. One of Beterbiev's opponents told a reporter at the fight in the stands that he took a dive, perhaps because of bets on the "under" in the fight. This **** happens all the time. People should stop writing two page articles about the "subjectivity" of scoring, and stop being so naive. Scores are subjective sometimes. But 90% of the time, when a robbery happens, it's on purpose. You think Perez-Hooker was "subjective" scoring too? Hooker lost every round but got 7 out of 10 on one scorecard. Huh.

I had Kovalev 8-4, by the way. But I wasn't bought off, so.

[Boxing Logic]

funny all the slow motion people usually arguing are not mentioning that a lot shots kov got credit for didnt even actually land when u watch in slow motion. Also alot of the rounds kov won he won big time and ones ward won he barely pulled alot those rounds out so him winning the overal punch stats is not a surprise

You already watched the fight in slow motion and cross-referenced every thrown punch with compubox from the round, then read the minds of the compubox scorers of which "punches landed" from the stats sheets were attributed to each punch on screen, and then tallied up that Kovalev's landed punches were overrepresented, while also checking to confirm that Ward never got wrongfully credited for any punches he threw that actually didn't land?

Good for you man, good for you. Well done.

[Jsmooth9876]

Why not just go with the most likely explanation? They liked something Roc Nation or HBO was giving them to make Ward the winner, that's what they liked. This is a corrupt business. We always try to explain away these weird, "unlikely" (as Kellerman put it) decisions, saying how strange they are, or how did that possibly happen?

How the **** you think it happens? It's boxing. Fights get rigged all the time. One of Beterbiev's opponents told a reporter at the fight in the stands that he took a dive, perhaps because of bets on the "under" in the fight. This **** happens all the time. People should stop writing two page articles about the "subjectivity" of scoring, and stop being so naive. Scores are subjective sometimes. But 90% of the time, when a robbery happens, it's on purpose. You think Perez-Hooker was "subjective" scoring too? Hooker lost every round but got 7 out of 10 on one scorecard. Huh.

I had Kovalev 8-4, by the way. But I wasn't bought off, so.

So you gave Kovalev every close round the same way the judges gave Ward every one. Kovalev should have won the fight, the judges all gave Ward the 10th which Kovalev won. That's the difference in the fight.

[Boxing Logic]

Anyone using punch stats to determine a winner is a certified noob

What's that graph in your sig based on? Looks kind of like a punch stats bar to me but maybe it's their twitter followers....