Comments Thread For: Promoter: Now That Ward Retired, Adonis Stevenson is #1 at 175

[TheThirdEye]

There's a big difference between no.1 and lineal champion. Lineal champion in this instance is irrelevant

Back in June 2013, Hopkins invited Stevenson to join Showtime, which was made in march 2014. The purpose of it was to unify 3 major belts (IBF, WBA and WBC). Showtime put millions on the table to get Stevenson, while he and Kovalev had no contract with HBO. So after HBO failed to match Showtime financial offer by 100k, Stevenson changed network.
But 10 days after B-Hop won his second title against Shumenov, on 04/29/2014 Mama Duva decided to sued Showtime, Golden Boy & Al Haymon etc etc, even if they had no business with this non sign verbal contract issue.
Kathy Duva created her lawsuit scam, to plot a settlement under table with Golden Boy for dropping this phony lawsuit in exchange of an unification bout between Hopkins and her protege Kovalev, and thus make Stevenson-Michel-Haymon stumble in the process.
Which is the reason why this Lawsuit got dropped the day after Hopkins and Kovalev reached an agreement to unify their titles. Golden Boy team weren't bright enough to realise this lawsuit was going nowhere, otherwise HBO would have backed up this phony complaint. But Golden Boy have taken the bait, due to the fact they also needed an excuse to reconnect with HBO.
That's why the Stevenson and B-hop fight never happen, Hopkins left...

And about Jean Pascal, he fueled a depreciation campaign against Stevenson using all forms of medias at its disposal to force Stevenson to give up to accept a equally split purse, when Pascal value was at 30% by the WBC.
But, while Stevenson was waiting for the WBC purse split 70-30, Pascal find a 60-40 deal with Kovalev and moved himself out of his WBC 1st mandatory position. Not to mention, to avoid losing the high value the WBC Diamond belt brought him when he left the Groupe Yvon Michel (GYM) promotion for Interbox promotion; He, Greg Leon and Kathy Duva build up a plan to convince the WBC of positioning the winner between him and Kovalev mandatory to Stevenson. Which is how he avoided to get stripped from that WBC Diamond belt.

Anyhow, for team Duva it was just a commercial prank used to enhance the market value of Kovalev with HBO, as you noticed Kov team rejected the 2 purse bid the WBC ordered following their previous agreement. The first rejection was made when Kovalev had no contract, and the second denial was done when Kovalev was under a new contract with HBO.

Is Pascal a top LHW, is 50 years old Hopkins a TOP LHW? Stevenson would've snach them both. For you, these 2 names on Kovalev resume, means the WBC Champ Stevenson would need to make his way up to the winner of Kovalev-Ward; How, by chasing duckers?
You can say what you truly think, like, "I hate Stevenson or I love Kovalev so much, I hope Stevenson never get the chance to fight Kovalev, because I really have the honest feeling he'll beat the crap out of the Russian".
But saying stup*d stuff like (he is not #1), just prove how aware you are about the danger Stevenson represent for your favorite loser. Look, Ward ducked his own Undisputed matchup by trying the fight Frank Buglioni, TV says no, ROC says hell no, and he retired: What does that mean?

Ward moved up to 175Lbs, after being called by Kovalev, to bypass the Stevenson threat. Ward started to joke about Stevenson, like: "He will have to ask Al to come out & play".
Stevenson congratulate & Challenge Ward after his victory over Kovalev, but Ward says: "why now, I'm not even thinking about this guy right now". In a UK conference, Ward says: "no disrespect to Stevenson, but he is a step back", also says he would rather fight in a big UK stadium, and maybe meet guys like "Cleverly". In the meantime, Ward says between him and Stevenson it has to make sense.
After Ward second victory over Kov, Stevenson congratulate Ward again and says lets fight for the Undisputed, but Ward repeated it has to make sense.
After Badou Jack easy victory over Cleverly, Stevenson congratulate Jack and challenge him to fight before the Undisputed matchup, saying Ward is wasting time beating around the bushes, Ward is acting like a princess.
Ward sounds off til the Crawford Undisputed fight. After the insistence of a reporter, Ward says he fought Kov twice while Stevenson didn't fight him once, just seconds after feinting his own interest to become Undisputed too.
4 weeks ago, Ward attempted to settle a fight with an Eddie Hearn guy "Frank Buglioni" in UK, which was turned down by Buglioni & HBO.
ROC choice was Stevenson next, HBO choice was Stevenson or challenging heavier opponents. But Ward plan was well calculated, Bellew & Joshua belongs to Eddie Hearn, therefore it was fairly easy for Ward to show some appearance of negotiations while maintaining his lie of going up in weight.
Ward was only preparing to milk his titles with the lesser opponents Hearn has in his stable, from the LHW division.
But when ROC & HBO rejected the softer "Buglioni" choice, Ward didn't want to take the risk of fighting Stevenson even if the reward was to become Undisputed; Ward retired instead.

[elcashanilla]

The perceived #1 fighter doesn't always win the fights, you ****** ass. Styles make fights, you ****** ass. coWard is overrated and he lost to Kovalev, you ****** ass. It's because of ****** asses like you that cowards like coWard can "retire" and still be perceived as better than the fighters he ducked. You ****** ass.

yes idiot overrated because he beat Froch kessler Kovalev twice(i know it hurts) Rodriguez Barrera Dawson Abraham like I said learn Boxing Dumb ASS and than reply to me

[Lou Cipher]

Dumb ASS and than reply

You ****** ass.

[elcashanilla]

You ****** ass.

Exactly when someone shuts you up you start looking for other crap to bit ch about

[Squ□redCircle34]

Holy guacamole!

Look at all the haters in this thread!

Ward did Supermans job and beat THEE MAN at 175!

Stevenson made Emmanuel Steward roll in his grave by somehow making the name and meaning of a champion as worthless and without relevance!

How he still wears Kronk gym colors is a disgrace and I'm surprised Tommy Hearns hasn't called him out on his bs!

How does Kovalev, Ward, Barrera and even Badou Jack challenge themselves and test their might against the best but not YOU!

Yvonne Michelle is a hoe, scared to put Beterbiev in with Stevenson and is half stepping with a pillow punching Eleider Alvarez!

Stevenson and Billy Joe Saunders are the biggest jokes in BOXING! Everyone is laughing at you, not with you!

[Travycat]

In a strange turn of events, the guy who's people avoided Ward are now being avoided by Kovalev. And I said Stevenson's handlers, not Stevenson. So don't get your panties in a bunch.

[Vlad_]

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!

Great post. Thanks for taking the time to write. We see pretty much eye to eye 100% on the Kovalev-Ward saga.


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[jonnyc420]

Lol yes after battling the legendary Fonfara twice it only seems right lol. Only five people still support the clown. Stick to your Canadian sideshows cuz nobody else cares about this clown.

[Lou Cipher]

Exactly when someone shuts you up you start looking for other crap to bit ch about

You couldn't shut a toilet lid with your intellect and even less with your Boxing knowledge. I stop reading once I see the first misspelling. Took you 4 words. You ****** ass.

[robbyheartbaby]

Look all I know is the division is heating up, Kovalev has to come up again from the bottom, Beterbiev is getting a title shot, and Stevenson vs Alvarez is going to be great. You got Jack at 175 now, Barrera, Smith etc. Some good fights to be made.