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People are about to get on here and complain about Ward. LOL. He is telling the truth and has been saying things that Kov later admit in interviews. It is what it is. Some people just flat out have huge problems with Ward. I look forward to a documentary he has coming out...
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Give kovalev his much deserved rubber match you DCKK puncher.
I can only imagine what wards followers would have thought had kovalev won vs ward in russia off DCKK punches.
Ward is a dirty fighterComment
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the hate ward gets is hilariousComment
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By Greg Bishop
November 21, 2017
Sergey Kovalev admits he always had bad habits, even as an elite athlete. They started before he ever became a boxer, while growing up Russia, where his life was defined by street fights and juvenile delinquency.
That didn’t change when he turned pro in 2009. The boxer known as Krusher drank and caroused between bouts, showing up to camps in less-than-ideal shape and clinging to some odd notions, like that he shouldn’t drink too much water because it would make him gain weight.
None of that mattered in the ring. Kovalev triumphed in spite of how he lived. Other than a fluke draw at the Playboy Mansion in 2011, he won 30 of his first 31 fights. He recorded 26 knockouts, toppled Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins, became one of the sport’s most exciting athletes and climbed all manner of pound-for-pound lists...
He underwent a turbulent training camp, feuding with his trainer, John David Jackson. He climbed into the ring on June 17 and says he just was … off. “I felt like I got a shot of vodka,” Kovalev says. “Like, wow. Like, dizzy. I couldn’t understand. Then I can’t remember.”
Kovalev says he recalls none of the rematch from the middle of the second round until the eighth, when Ward landed a sharp right that wobbled Kovalev and made his face jiggle with force. That is, Kovalev says, what snapped him back to reality...
Sometimes, he’d just drive, hopping into his 1996 Mercedes S-Class, his baby, the car he’d spent $100,000 to upgrade, even affixing a “Krusher” sticker to the back window. One afternoon, he drove into the countryside, 100 kilometers (roughly 62 miles) from his hometown. Kovalev sped along a two-lane highway and did not notice a car heading in the opposite direction attempting to pass another car in Kovalev’s lane. Well, he did notice, just far too late. He jerked the steering wheel to the right as hard as he could, yanking the Mercedes off the road and into a forest of birch trees. Kovalev estimates he was driving 140 kilometers an hour, the equivalent of about 87 mph, and he says that from the moment he slammed on his brakes, the car skidded through the forest for 100 meters before it stopped...
Klimas rarely heard from Kovalev in that stretch. Occasionally, the boxer would call to ask what fights might be possible. He never mentioned the accident. Neither man knew then that Kovalev would sign to fight Vyacheslav Shabranskyy in a bout that will take place Saturday in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Kovalev describes the accident as the fourth “bell” that showed him he needed to change his life. The first bell was his unanimous decision victory over Isaac Chilemba in July 2016. Kovalev won but not in typical, bludgeoning fashion. The second and third bells were the Ward fights. So Kovalev made a decision...
He hiked with friends to one of the monasteries located lower on the mountain. They presented a special visa to the monks there and asked to stay the night. They were placed in a simple room that Kovalev affectionately refers to as a closet, fed a chicken dinner and led to the church. There, Kovalev was granted a special audience with the elder, the monk in charge. He says he thanked God and prayed and asked the elder the question he traveled to Greece to ask someone of that stature. He won’t say what the question was, but it’s clear it centered on this next phase of his life. “I prayed that I stay healthy, stay sober, stay focused,” he says.
After Greece, Kovalev went to a detox center. He learned how to make healthier eating choices, chew his food better and drink more water. He says he bought in. He stopped drinking anything with sugar, cut out fried food, forsook alcohol and embraced a former enemy—vegetables...
While Klimas makes a fair point that Kovalev’s bad habits hardly seemed to impact his career, it also seems to fair to wonder how much better Kovalev might have been had he pivoted to this lifestyle, say, five years ago. Would he not have faded in the Ward fights? Klimas argues that Kovalev did win the first Ward bout, but he also admits that “he wasn’t the same Sergey” and adds, “He was completely different. And we all know where that came from.”
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KOVALEV CAMP INSIDER CO-SIGNS JOHN DAVID JACKSON; EXPLAINS POWER AND MONEY MADE SERGEY "VERY DIFFICULT"
By Percy Crawford | December 04, 2017
PC: Was it a money thing or a power thing? Do you think the money he made, he got like that or do you think the more assertive he became as a fighter, he became like that because of the power his name carried in the sport?
KEJ: To answer your initial question, Percy, it was a combination of both; power and money. When he won his first world title, he changed. I was there for it. Did Sergey appear to be a little racist? Yeah! He didn’t appear to have too much for the brothers.
NC: He dealt with John because John had something to give him. He would just come in the gym and not say a whole lot to us. He never said anything slick, but you could just tell. As a brother, you could tell when somebody don’t have too much for you.
NC: I was going to come down to camp one time and anybody that knows me knows I’m militant. John David knows I will cuss, cut, or fight any mother****er in the world. I don’t care who you are. Kenny could tell you, anybody that knows me from back in the day knows that I will set fire to the back door and shoot anybody that comes out of the front. That’s my mentality. When I was going to come out to camp, John told me, “Nate, I don’t think you should come out here.”
KEJ: He ended up firing the assistant. He couldn’t give a reason of why he fired him, he just fired him; Derrick.
NC: He said he didn’t want Derrick around him. That’s the guy that trains Sullivan Barrera, so you know Derrick wants that fight with Sergey.
PC: Do you remember the moment you started to notice him change?
NC: When he won his first world title. I’ma tell you something, John didn’t say it, but he said it to me. You know how John is; he don’t say nothing, but he say it. I was like, “Damn, for real.” He was like, “Yeah Nate, he’s hard to deal with now.”
KEJ: I will tell you this, when they went and fought the boy Cleverly, John came back and told me, “His career ain’t going to be long. Boy, he drinks that Vodka like you wouldn’t believe.”
NC: I wanted you to hear it not just from me and what I was able to put together from talking to John, I wanted you to hear it from somebody. Kenny was in the actual camp with them. I needed for Kenny to get on the mic and talk about it because you ain’t about to make me feel wrong about my boy.
KEJ: There were times John hated going to gym and dealing with him. And he’s trying to make it as if John is some Uncle Tom, but if that is the case, we are all some Uncle Toms because we all worked with or for somebody that we really didn’t like.
NC = Nate Campbell
KEJ = Kenny Ellis Jr.Comment
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Ward is right. Max Kellerman even told us just before the fight started that kovalev's opponent was there to be hit. Go look it up.Comment
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Ward is a little delusional. I loved watching him in the Olympics, which is why I'm very critical of his career. I think he made a lot of bad decisions, he fought a lot of easy opponents. He became very inactive at the end of his career. His style of holding and hitting was never really stopped by referee's, very similar to Vlad's constant holding that was never limited. Worst part about it, they actually SCORED that BS during the first Kovalev fight. That was one horrible decision. Then in the rematch, he wins in ridiculously controversial circumstances which pretty much summed up his career.
I'm not a Ward hater. I just know talent when I see it, and it always seemed like he didn't maximize it.Comment
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So Ward is saying that we won't know if the old Kovalev is back before another opponent repeatedly hits him in the nuts."The issue with Kovalev wasn't technical or physical. It was psychological and mental. You won't know if that's been changed or been dealt with unless he is put in the same situationComment
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