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This Winter:
Kovalev-Jack
Stevenson-Gvozdyk
Beterbiev-Barrera
Bivol-Joe Smith
This Spring:
Kovalev-Stevenson
Gvozdyk-Joe Smith
Jack-Barrera
Beterbiev-Bivol
This Summer:
Kovalev/Stevenson winner vs Beterbiev/Bivol winner
Kovalev/Stevenson loser vs Beterbiev/Bivol loser
Gvozdyk-Smith winner vs Jack-Barrera winner
Gvozdyk-Smith loser vs Jack-Barrera loser
Next Fall:
Kovalev/Stevenson loser vs Beterbiev/Bivol loser winner vs Gvozdyk/Smith winner vs Jack/Barrera winner, winner...
And so on. Alvarez can get in the mix at some point. Same with any young guns. Maybe Benavidez or Gilberto Ramirez move up eventually...
There are so many great fights that can be made, back to back to back, to really secure legacies for these fighters very quickly actually, and bring boxing back to the glory days very quickly.
Kovalev, Stevenson, Beterbiev, maybe Ward if he comes back and fights Kovalev on an even playing field (third time's the charm?) and one other top guy, or maybe Bivol to take that spot if Ward doesn't seize it, can actually be looked back on like the four kings are, thirty years from now, if they make the most of this moment in time when they are all near the top of the sport and in the same division. If these guys actually fight in the next 6 months, while they are still in or near their primes, and the fights live up to what they look like they will on paper, then by the end of the tournament, we could have a new pound for pound king coming from the light heavyweight division, as well as a trio, quartet, or more of boxers who will be remembered for being part of one of the legendary classes of light heavyweights in the history of the sport. They can go down as Greats in the sport's history.
But, they actually need to fight. They need to mix and match among other top 5 guys in the division to create a large enough sample size for fans to realize what kind of talent is in the division at the moment. Bot once that context is created, and the talent checks out, this era could really prove to be something. And once the quality is proven to the fans, then the hype and the money will come afterwards. But first, the quality needs to be proven from among many of these impressive looking fighters who sadly are not well known to casual fans. And that can only happen if the best fight the best, and that needs to happen immediately becuse many of these talents are either approaching their mid-30s or past them.
So in short, boxing has all the ingredients here for a very special era at light heavyweight, just like it's had them for the last five years. However, outside of two corrupt fights with Ward, the sport made almost nothing out of all the ingredients it had at its exposure. Will it continue to make that mistake? Or will the sport, for once, make as many of these great fights as possible as fast as possible, given the ages of the fighters involved, instead of waiting and "marinating" fights that are already overcooked, and don't need to be cooked or prepared any more than they already have been?
MAKE THESE FIGHTS ALREADY, PLEASE!Comment
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This promoter is actually saying that it's better for boxing to have four different titles with different people than it is to have one undisputed champion.Comment
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yeah im the ****** 1 and your saying crap like this "coWard retired to avoid Stevenson. That means he was #1 at 175 all along. coWard had nowhere to run. GGG was lurking south, Stevenson lurking East and West, Bellew lurking North. All unwinnable fights for coWard". Learn about boxing and than reply to me OKComment
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Nah I rate Kovalev much higher. You can’t avoid everybody tough in your division then claim to be King.Comment
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Heavyweight
Joshua
Wilder
Ortiz
Parker
Povetkin
Pulev
Ruiz Jr
Whyte
Miller
Breazale
Cruiserweight
Usyk
Gassiev
Briedis
Dorticos
Lebedev
Bellew
Glowacki
Wlodarczyk
Tabiti
Makabu
LHW
Stevenson
Kovalev
Jack
Gvozdyk
Barrera
Beterbiev
Alvarez
Bivol
Joe smith jr
Browne
SMW
DeGale
Ramirez
Eubank Jr
Groves
Benavidez
Smith
Andre Dirrel
Anthony Dirrel
Uzcategui
Braehmer
Middleweight
Golovkin
Canelo
Jacobs
Charlo
Lemieux
BJS
Derevyachenko
Murata
N'Dam
Centeno Jr
Jr MW
Lara
Jermell Charlo
Cotto
Hurd
Trout
Andrade
Lubin
Sulecki
Castano
J.Williams
Welterweight
Thurman
Spence
Porter
D.Garcia
Brook
Peterson
Horn
Pacquiao
Vargas
Mathysse
Jr Welterweights
Crawford
Postol
Orozco
Prograis
Lipinets
Broner
Figueroa jr
Indongo
Taylor
Barthelemy
Lightweight
M.Garcia
Linares
Flanagan
Easter
Shafikov
Verdejo
Commey
Beltran
Crolla
Campbell
Jr Lightweight
Lomachenko
Berchelt
Davis
Corrales
Salido
Vargas
Farmer
Walters
J.Gonzalez
Castellanos
Featherweight
Russel jr
Santa Cruz
Frampton
Valdez
Selby
Diaz jr
Mares
Quigg
Cuellar
Jorge Lara
Super Bantamweight
Rigondeaux
Magdaleno
Vargas
De La Hoya
J.Ceja
Bantamweight
Yamanaka/Nery
Tete
Zhakiyanov
Payano
McDonnell
Super Flyweight
Rungvisai
Inoue
Estrada
Cuadras
YafaiLast edited by DuckAdonis; 09-29-2017, 01:24 PM.Comment
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By the way Kovalev is still the #1 at 175 in my opinion. Ward never beat him any more than Bradley beat Pacquiao, so Kovalev is still undefeated in my opinion. I understand Ward fans want to see it differently, and that the official record books say he won just like they say Bradley beat Pacquiao. I don't dispute any of that, it's just my opinion that Kovalev is undefeated.
More than that, I think Kovalev beat up Ward in the rematch, and the ref actually saved Ward more than he saved Kovalev. Kovalev was about to survive that round when he got hurt to the head after all the low blows, and Ward had punched himself out, in my opinion, after taking a lot of damage throughout the fight, and having to use his legs and work a lot harder than he wanted to, all after adding way more muscle for the rematch to help take Kovalev's power, which also adds a lot to the fatigue level. We saw how GGG's pressure got to Canelo very quickly after Canelo added all that extra weight to face GGG, and in my opinion the same thing was happening with Ward.
Not only do I not personally consider Ward a winner over Kovalev in either fight, but I believe the second fight was the by far the worst beating Ward took in his career, and that Kovalev may well have stopped him had the fight not been stopped prematurely by what appeared to me to be a corrupt ref.
I know to those who watched with the HBO commentary, this may seem like the opposite narrative of what you thought you saw happen in the fight. I understand that because I experienced the same thing. The night of the fight, when I watched with HBO commentary, I halfway fell for the narrative too. They brilliantly kept the microscope on Kovalev, never Ward, a textbook propaganda tactic. They would show him breathing heavily in the corner between rounds, and instead of explaining that this was a breathing technique he was purposefully using after every round, even the 1st round, to lower his heart rate, they spun it that it meant he was tired. Whenever Ward fouled Kovalev and Kovalev complained to the referee, they would steer the viewer's su****ion back onto Kovalev, and make leading suggestions like "maybe he's so tired he wants a way out of the fight," rather than focus on the root issue actually happening in the moment that led to all that speculation in the first place: the fact that Ward was continually fouling Kovalev.
Why was Ward continually fouling Kovalev? Could it be that he was the desperate, frustrated one? Could it be that he was actually the far more fatigued one, but HBO just wasn't showing you that? Could it be that he wasn't carrying all that extra muscle well under the ramped up pressure, punch output, and body work Kovalev was employing in the rematch? Once I turned the commentary off and started studying the fight for myself, without being influenced by the leading statements and propaganda coming from Ward's two best friends on the broadcast, Max Kellerman and Roy Jones Jr., and one commenter fearful about losing his job, Jim Lampley, I saw a completely different fight. Kovalev was making Ward backpedal and use his legs more than he had in five years. He was hitting Ward with more clean shots to the head than he had in the first fight, and more hard body shots than Ward had been hit with his entire career. Ward was bleeding out both his mouth and his nostrils from the fourth or fifth round on. By the 5th and 6th round Ward's punch output had dropped significantly, and he was becoming increasingly desperate, beginning to elbow Kovalev, punch low, and use headbutts as he became more and more desperate that his boxing wasn't winning him rounds or stopping Kovalev's forward momentum while Kovalev was beating him up more each round.
Obviously we will never truly know what would have happened had the ref not stopped the fight early, but if you watch that fight without commentary, you will see a completely different fight than the narrative HBO's crew created, and when you remember that Kovalev broke Cedric Agnew's ribs with a jab, and then you contrast that knowledge with the video of Kovalev landing handfuls of clean, hard jabs and power punches every round in the rematch, you will understand that the idea that Kovalev retired Ward is not far fetched at all. If you judge the fights on the Gatti-Ward standard, then yes the idea is ridiculous, but if you remember that one punch from Kovalev is equal, in terms of damage, to say 20 punches by Gatti or Ward, then it will make complete sense.
Kovalev hit Ward with dozens and dozens of shots that would have either broken the bones of or knocked out light heavyweights ranked #10 to #20. Dozens. Of course, Ward is much stronger than those light heavyweights, so he was able to take all those shots without being knocked out or having his bones broken, but that doesn't mean they weren't creating massive wear and tear on Ward's body as a professional boxer. In fact, his ability to take the shots means he was able to stay in the ring for longer, and absorb many more of those shots, than most other light heavyweights would have, the result being that Ward ended up taking 20 rounds worth of shots from Kovalev where most others would have been knocked out or stopped after only a handful of rounds of those shots. Good chin or not, strong bones or not, it's not far fetched at all to think that 20 rounds of punishment at the hands of Sergey Kovalev on a boxer who has been ****** up with injuries in the past, and who some also suspect of off and on PED use which can also wear down the joints and the body as a whole, could be enough to make that boxer retire, and that is exactly what I see when I rewatch Kovalev-Ward II.
Everyone will have their own opinion, and I respect that, especially if they've formulated their opinion only after watching the fight on mute, without the biased commentary. But I have watched the fight multiple times, and I am more than confident that had the referee not stopped the fight on a foul before either boxer even hit the canvas, Andre Ward would have gassed out very badly, like Anthony Joshua did against Klitschko, and Kovalev, being a much better finisher than Klitschko is at this point in his career, would have started to tee off on a sitting duck. And if Ward even survived to the 11th and 12th rounds, I believe there's a high chance his legs would have given out by that point in the fight, like Sergio Martinez's did against Chavez Jr late after all that backpedaling from all that constant pressure for 12 rounds (which wasn't even nearly as effective or damaging as Kovalev's pressure), and then Kovalev would have finished the fight if he hadn't already.
That's just my opinion. We never got to see how that fight would have ended though, and as much as that sucks for the fans and hurts the sport itself, the blessing in disguise may be that it helped preserve Kovalev longer in the sport, and helped preserve Andre Ward's health as well. But with Kovalev still in the sport, and so much talent at 175, assuming Ward is not coming back and officially settling the score with Kovalev, which I don't think he should, it's so important for the sport, and the legacies of all the top guys at 175 right now, that these fights are made NOW, in the next couple months. The division has already been delayed way too long by all the bul**** and corruption that has seemed to have surrounded the division the last couple years. These guys are already reaching the end of their primes, if not on the downswing already. So, the time is now. Please match the best vs the best in the division over the next couple months until one unified champion remains!Comment
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with ward gone that means kovalev is #1.Comment
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