Comments Thread For: Bivol's Promoter: Kovalev Has Unfortunately Slowed Down

[g27region]

His legs are gone and that was half of his success in other fights. Might be the age

[masterpatric09]

Kovalev Chin is Gone.He is done.mentally is broken.Power is there , but he is in across road.Paquiao after Marquez Ko took him a few fights to regain the invincibility aura and the demolishing machine to go for the Ko as we saw against Matthysse.He may come back.I want to see Him against Chickenson.I always felt Stevenson could beat him, but today I believe Kova Beats Him.From there we can evaluate Better.

[goldenbear]

Alvarez bigger and faster than Kov.....

Even without Ward losses Kov gets dispatched. Alvarez appeared to be bigger and definitely faster and that's always a recipe for disaster. People forget Kov has been knocked down by smaller men so when you fight a LHW that's just as big if not bigger and faster you usually lose and lose badly. People avoided Alvarez for a reason and now you know why.

[Boxing Logic]

great post, good points

Boxing Logic strikes again. Another very detailed post with some excellent points. Thanks for the read.

No, thank you guys! Very nice to hear positive feedback on here for a change. Not that I never get it, in fact I get a lot of unsolicited donations by people of points after I make posts so I assume thats meant to show appreciation for the post even if they dont always say anything outside of the donation, but there does seem to be more "LDBC" type posters on NSB than posters like me. In fact it seems like there are more of those types of fans in boxing fandom in general, at least American fandom. I wonder if that's actually true, or if they are just the loudest ones making it seem like there are more of them than they really are. I hope that's the case because as long as they make up the majority of US boxing fans, then US boxing as a whole will pander to them, and as long as ******ity and bias is being pandered to by the sport, then the sport itself will reflect that ******ity and bias, and the bias will manifest itself within the the ring itself as unfairness and injustice.

So that's why I always appreciate getting positive feedback from other posters because it shows there are lots of fair fans out there too who want what's best for the sport. I cant click your profiles from this page but both of you add me to your friends list on here if you like!

[Boxing Logic]

Bivol also looked awful against Chilemba.

Bivol didn't look "awful," and he didn't gas completely after 4 rounds like Kovalev did. Bivol's biggest problem vs Chilemba is that Bivol and his team are used to the amateurs, not in boxing style, but in terms of weight. Bivol says he walks around at 185 to 190 pounds so his newb team thinks that makes him a light heavyweight in pro boxing. In reality, that makes him a super middleweight at best in pro boxing. So his problem vs Chilemba was that he fought an opponent a division bigger than him, which manifested not just in Chilemba's physical strength, size, and ability to take Bivol's best punch without going down, but also in Chilemba's longer reach.

Kovalev, while also smaller than Chilemba, was a lot closer in size to him than Bivol was. Kovalev actually had the size and power to drop Chilemba, which he showed, but he just lost all the stamina to throw his combinations crisply with much regularity as we got past the 4th round of that fight. Bivol still had it, he just didn't know what else to do because Chilemba with the extra 5-10 pounds in the ring (I heard 5, I heard 8, it looked more like 8 to me) was taking all his best shots.

In any case, Kovalev has gassed badly vs everyone he's fought since Chilemba. Chilemba, then Ward twice, the Shabbransky fight didnt go long enough or I'm sure he would have gassed in that one too, then Mikhalkin, then Alvarez.

Additionally, Kovalev has admitted himself in interviews that his problem is he keeps getting tired. Kovalev's former trainer, JDJ, has said Kovalev had drinking and smoking problems and didn't want to train anymore. That's what the "he wouldn't listen" thing is about. It means, "we told him he needed to keep training hard and do the things we've been doing, but he stopped listening and refused to do those things." Don Turner has confirmed the same thing, the interview is on youtube.

It's well known by everyone involved. Kovalev reached the top of the mountain in boxing, made some money, and got comfortable. People knew what was going on long before he ever fought Ward. It's my opinion Ward never would have fought him if that hadn't happened. It sounds like Kovalev's training and lifestyle habits went in the toilet, and Ward had friends in Kovalev's gym who told Ward (or his team) this was happening, and that's when Ward identified Kovalev as the big scalp he would cherry pick at light heavyweight. In other words, they probably knew they could sell to the ignorant public at large that this guy was still elite, because the public wouldn't even know any better, so they could get credit for finally getting an elite, Hall of Fame worthy win, but without actually having to take the risk of fighting an elite opponent.

It was the perfect opportunity to get maximum credit for minimum risk. But, even drunk Kovalev not training still turned out to be all Ward could handle, so the judges and refs had to get involved to push Ward over the top vs Kovalev, and so he didn't get as much credit as he thought he would. But my point at large is that I believe this the reason they chose Kovalev when they did, but as usual did not stick around to clean out the division and really prove supremacy as 175. Why not? Because they knew that Beterbiev and even old Stevenson were still actually training! Kovalev was the one mark they found, so that's the only one they targeted. Why do you think we as fans were all thinking going into the first fight, "either Kovalev by KO, or Ward by decision," but Virgil Hunter Ward's trainer was doing jumping jacks in front of the media telling everyone in the world who would listen that "we're going to stop this man" with the utmost confidence?

Because he knew. We all thought "kovalev by KO or Ward by decision" because we all thought Kovalev was still the Krusher. We were judging him on who he was in his prime. We had all seen that Ward could not even knock out the guy he fought before Kovalev, so how would he knock out the Krusher? But see that guy was actually training. Ward's team already knew, Kovalev is past his prime, he doesn't train anymore, he drinks, spies in his camp say he can't take it to the body anymore because of the drinking and the smoking, etc etc.

So they were expecting another Chad Dawson situation, where they run over an extremely weakened opponent, but one who has a sexy name in the sport and is known as being elite, in order to make Ward look elite and grow his name into a legend in the sport and a PPV star. Why do you think HBO was pushing Ward so hard as well? That was their plan too. Sell Kovalev as still being the Krusher so that when Ward walks all over the shell of Kovalev, they can sell Ward as the next Sugar Ray Leonard level talent, make him into HBO's next PPV star, next Floyd Mayweather, and then make tons of money of Ward.

But, even past prime Kovalev gave Ward all he could handle, so that push didn't work, plus the PPV sales bombed, so in the end Ward could not generate as much money as he got paid by Roc Nation that one time, and HBO could not afford to keep offering him that type of money without Roc Nation putting up the cash, so Ward decided to retire at least for the time being rather than take a paycut. But, just because the plan did not work out, does not mean that that was not indeed the plan, or that everyone but us, the lowly fans, didnt know the truth about Kovalev BEFORE they ever agreed to make the Kovalev-Ward fights. It WAS definitely the plan, and they DID absolutely know. Virgil even made hints about it during the press conference BEFORE Kovalev-Ward I.

Hell, the plan didn't work 100%, but it's still HBO's plan as much as they can pull it off. Why do you think Max Kellerman keeps bringing up Ward every single broadcast, trying to hype him up as much as possible and keep bringing up the Kovalev-Ward fights, even pretend like the first one never happened and Ward actually just clearly beat him BOTH fights not even just the second fight? It's because even though Ward is currently retired, HBO is still trying to grow his name as time goes by so that if he does come back, they will be able to make at least one big PPV with Ward, if not a series of them.

[Madison Boxing]

yeah hes not the same prime fighter who beat andre ward in the 1st fight.

[_Maxi]

Bivol didn't look "awful," and he didn't gas completely after 4 rounds like Kovalev did. Bivol's biggest problem vs Chilemba is that Bivol and his team are used to the amateurs, not in boxing style, but in terms of weight. Bivol says he walks around at 185 to 190 pounds so his newb team thinks that makes him a light heavyweight in pro boxing. In reality, that makes him a super middleweight at best in pro boxing. So his problem vs Chilemba was that he fought an opponent a division bigger than him, which manifested not just in Chilemba's physical strength, size, and ability to take Bivol's best punch without going down, but also in Chilemba's longer reach.

Kovalev, while also smaller than Chilemba, was a lot closer in size to him than Bivol was. Kovalev actually had the size and power to drop Chilemba, which he showed, but he just lost all the stamina to throw his combinations crisply with much regularity as we got past the 4th round of that fight. Bivol still had it, he just didn't know what else to do because Chilemba with the extra 5-10 pounds in the ring (I heard 5, I heard 8, it looked more like 8 to me) was taking all his best shots.

In any case, Kovalev has gassed badly vs everyone he's fought since Chilemba. Chilemba, then Ward twice, the Shabbransky fight didnt go long enough or I'm sure he would have gassed in that one too, then Mikhalkin, then Alvarez.

Additionally, Kovalev has admitted himself in interviews that his problem is he keeps getting tired. Kovalev's former trainer, JDJ, has said Kovalev had drinking and smoking problems and didn't want to train anymore. That's what the "he wouldn't listen" thing is about. It means, "we told him he needed to keep training hard and do the things we've been doing, but he stopped listening and refused to do those things." Don Turner has confirmed the same thing, the interview is on youtube.

It's well known by everyone involved. Kovalev reached the top of the mountain in boxing, made some money, and got comfortable. People knew what was going on long before he ever fought Ward. It's my opinion Ward never would have fought him if that hadn't happened. It sounds like Kovalev's training and lifestyle habits went in the toilet, and Ward had friends in Kovalev's gym who told Ward (or his team) this was happening, and that's when Ward identified Kovalev as the big scalp he would cherry pick at light heavyweight. In other words, they probably knew they could sell to the ignorant public at large that this guy was still elite, because the public wouldn't even know any better, so they could get credit for finally getting an elite, Hall of Fame worthy win, but without actually having to take the risk of fighting an elite opponent.

It was the perfect opportunity to get maximum credit for minimum risk. But, even drunk Kovalev not training still turned out to be all Ward could handle, so the judges and refs had to get involved to push Ward over the top vs Kovalev, and so he didn't get as much credit as he thought he would. But my point at large is that I believe this the reason they chose Kovalev when they did, but as usual did not stick around to clean out the division and really prove supremacy as 175. Why not? Because they knew that Beterbiev and even old Stevenson were still actually training! Kovalev was the one mark they found, so that's the only one they targeted. Why do you think we as fans were all thinking going into the first fight, "either Kovalev by KO, or Ward by decision," but Virgil Hunter Ward's trainer was doing jumping jacks in front of the media telling everyone in the world who would listen that "we're going to stop this man" with the utmost confidence?

Because he knew. We all thought "kovalev by KO or Ward by decision" because we all thought Kovalev was still the Krusher. We were judging him on who he was in his prime. We had all seen that Ward could not even knock out the guy he fought before Kovalev, so how would he knock out the Krusher? But see that guy was actually training. Ward's team already knew, Kovalev is past his prime, he doesn't train anymore, he drinks, spies in his camp say he can't take it to the body anymore because of the drinking and the smoking, etc etc.

So they were expecting another Chad Dawson situation, where they run over an extremely weakened opponent, but one who has a sexy name in the sport and is known as being elite, in order to make Ward look elite and grow his name into a legend in the sport and a PPV star. Why do you think HBO was pushing Ward so hard as well? That was their plan too. Sell Kovalev as still being the Krusher so that when Ward walks all over the shell of Kovalev, they can sell Ward as the next Sugar Ray Leonard level talent, make him into HBO's next PPV star, next Floyd Mayweather, and then make tons of money of Ward.

But, even past prime Kovalev gave Ward all he could handle, so that push didn't work, plus the PPV sales bombed, so in the end Ward could not generate as much money as he got paid by Roc Nation that one time, and HBO could not afford to keep offering him that type of money without Roc Nation putting up the cash, so Ward decided to retire at least for the time being rather than take a paycut. But, just because the plan did not work out, does not mean that that was not indeed the plan, or that everyone but us, the lowly fans, didnt know the truth about Kovalev BEFORE they ever agreed to make the Kovalev-Ward fights. It WAS definitely the plan, and they DID absolutely know. Virgil even made hints about it during the press conference BEFORE Kovalev-Ward I.

Hell, the plan didn't work 100%, but it's still HBO's plan as much as they can pull it off. Why do you think Max Kellerman keeps bringing up Ward every single broadcast, trying to hype him up as much as possible and keep bringing up the Kovalev-Ward fights, even pretend like the first one never happened and Ward actually just clearly beat him BOTH fights not even just the second fight? It's because even though Ward is currently retired, HBO is still trying to grow his name as time goes by so that if he does come back, they will be able to make at least one big PPV with Ward, if not a series of them.

Bivol fought a big man himself in Barrera, and dominated him. I think Chilemba is good enough to make you look awful. He's big, long, and has a chin and boxing skills.

[Boxing-1013]

No, thank you guys! Very nice to hear positive feedback on here for a change. Not that I never get it, in fact I get a lot of unsolicited donations by people of points after I make posts so I assume thats meant to show appreciation for the post even if they dont always say anything outside of the donation, but there does seem to be more "LDBC" type posters on NSB than posters like me. In fact it seems like there are more of those types of fans in boxing fandom in general, at least American fandom. I wonder if that's actually true, or if they are just the loudest ones making it seem like there are more of them than they really are. I hope that's the case because as long as they make up the majority of US boxing fans, then US boxing as a whole will pander to them, and as long as ******ity and bias is being pandered to by the sport, then the sport itself will reflect that ******ity and bias, and the bias will manifest itself within the the ring itself as unfairness and injustice.

So that's why I always appreciate getting positive feedback from other posters because it shows there are lots of fair fans out there too who want what's best for the sport. I cant click your profiles from this page but both of you add me to your friends list on here if you like!

This site seems to me to have the best platform for displaying 'boxing news', with the 30 or so top articles they keep running/rotating on the front page. It is easy to come on here and get your boxing news every so often from that spread.

I think a lot of people feel the same way about the layout of the site...unfortunately that means a lot of 'boxing fans' gravitate to this site to get their news. There seems to have been an influx of the very ignorant ones over the past year even.

I don't necessarily want to live in an echo chamber; however with most of the ones who post ignorant, illogical things, there is no conversation to be had with them. You can break down the correct answer for them, and they will just mention something else and try to slightly change the subject. It is all so tiresome.

'It is hard to win an argument vs a smart person...but it is damn near impossible to win an argument against a ****** person'

That quote comes to mind with a lot of posters on here. They just aren't smart at all and a lot of their analysis seems dependent on things other than rationality, logic and objectivity. They are basically rooting for the team with the mascot they like best, and ignore all data that goes against their pre-established narrative.

I think a lot of it just comes down to tribalism with a lot of them...mixed in with the fact that a lot of them are not smart enough to independently analyze things.

[Boxing-1013]

Bivol didn't look "awful," and he didn't gas completely after 4 rounds like Kovalev did. Bivol's biggest problem vs Chilemba is that Bivol and his team are used to the amateurs, not in boxing style, but in terms of weight. Bivol says he walks around at 185 to 190 pounds so his newb team thinks that makes him a light heavyweight in pro boxing. In reality, that makes him a super middleweight at best in pro boxing. So his problem vs Chilemba was that he fought an opponent a division bigger than him, which manifested not just in Chilemba's physical strength, size, and ability to take Bivol's best punch without going down, but also in Chilemba's longer reach.

Kovalev, while also smaller than Chilemba, was a lot closer in size to him than Bivol was. Kovalev actually had the size and power to drop Chilemba, which he showed, but he just lost all the stamina to throw his combinations crisply with much regularity as we got past the 4th round of that fight. Bivol still had it, he just didn't know what else to do because Chilemba with the extra 5-10 pounds in the ring (I heard 5, I heard 8, it looked more like 8 to me) was taking all his best shots.

In any case, Kovalev has gassed badly vs everyone he's fought since Chilemba. Chilemba, then Ward twice, the Shabbransky fight didnt go long enough or I'm sure he would have gassed in that one too, then Mikhalkin, then Alvarez.

Additionally, Kovalev has admitted himself in interviews that his problem is he keeps getting tired. Kovalev's former trainer, JDJ, has said Kovalev had drinking and smoking problems and didn't want to train anymore. That's what the "he wouldn't listen" thing is about. It means, "we told him he needed to keep training hard and do the things we've been doing, but he stopped listening and refused to do those things." Don Turner has confirmed the same thing, the interview is on youtube.

It's well known by everyone involved. Kovalev reached the top of the mountain in boxing, made some money, and got comfortable. People knew what was going on long before he ever fought Ward. It's my opinion Ward never would have fought him if that hadn't happened. It sounds like Kovalev's training and lifestyle habits went in the toilet, and Ward had friends in Kovalev's gym who told Ward (or his team) this was happening, and that's when Ward identified Kovalev as the big scalp he would cherry pick at light heavyweight. In other words, they probably knew they could sell to the ignorant public at large that this guy was still elite, because the public wouldn't even know any better, so they could get credit for finally getting an elite, Hall of Fame worthy win, but without actually having to take the risk of fighting an elite opponent.

It was the perfect opportunity to get maximum credit for minimum risk. But, even drunk Kovalev not training still turned out to be all Ward could handle, so the judges and refs had to get involved to push Ward over the top vs Kovalev, and so he didn't get as much credit as he thought he would. But my point at large is that I believe this the reason they chose Kovalev when they did, but as usual did not stick around to clean out the division and really prove supremacy as 175. Why not? Because they knew that Beterbiev and even old Stevenson were still actually training! Kovalev was the one mark they found, so that's the only one they targeted. Why do you think we as fans were all thinking going into the first fight, "either Kovalev by KO, or Ward by decision," but Virgil Hunter Ward's trainer was doing jumping jacks in front of the media telling everyone in the world who would listen that "we're going to stop this man" with the utmost confidence?

Because he knew. We all thought "kovalev by KO or Ward by decision" because we all thought Kovalev was still the Krusher. We were judging him on who he was in his prime. We had all seen that Ward could not even knock out the guy he fought before Kovalev, so how would he knock out the Krusher? But see that guy was actually training. Ward's team already knew, Kovalev is past his prime, he doesn't train anymore, he drinks, spies in his camp say he can't take it to the body anymore because of the drinking and the smoking, etc etc.

So they were expecting another Chad Dawson situation, where they run over an extremely weakened opponent, but one who has a sexy name in the sport and is known as being elite, in order to make Ward look elite and grow his name into a legend in the sport and a PPV star. Why do you think HBO was pushing Ward so hard as well? That was their plan too. Sell Kovalev as still being the Krusher so that when Ward walks all over the shell of Kovalev, they can sell Ward as the next Sugar Ray Leonard level talent, make him into HBO's next PPV star, next Floyd Mayweather, and then make tons of money of Ward.

But, even past prime Kovalev gave Ward all he could handle, so that push didn't work, plus the PPV sales bombed, so in the end Ward could not generate as much money as he got paid by Roc Nation that one time, and HBO could not afford to keep offering him that type of money without Roc Nation putting up the cash, so Ward decided to retire at least for the time being rather than take a paycut. But, just because the plan did not work out, does not mean that that was not indeed the plan, or that everyone but us, the lowly fans, didnt know the truth about Kovalev BEFORE they ever agreed to make the Kovalev-Ward fights. It WAS definitely the plan, and they DID absolutely know. Virgil even made hints about it during the press conference BEFORE Kovalev-Ward I.

Hell, the plan didn't work 100%, but it's still HBO's plan as much as they can pull it off. Why do you think Max Kellerman keeps bringing up Ward every single broadcast, trying to hype him up as much as possible and keep bringing up the Kovalev-Ward fights, even pretend like the first one never happened and Ward actually just clearly beat him BOTH fights not even just the second fight? It's because even though Ward is currently retired, HBO is still trying to grow his name as time goes by so that if he does come back, they will be able to make at least one big PPV with Ward, if not a series of them.

Another good, interesting post

[Boxing Logic]

Bivol fought a big man himself in Barrera, and dominated him. I think Chilemba is good enough to make you look awful. He's big, long, and has a chin and boxing skills.

Bivol couldnt knock Barrera down once until late in the fight either, despite landing flush on Barrera countless times. Against the top competition that has elite defense, which Chilemba is closer to defensively, he won't get the chance to land even 1/4 as many clean shots as he landed on Barrera, so the ones he lands have to do damage, but that's the whole point, only what, 1 knockdown in 24 rounds now that he's stepped up to facing big light heavyweights? His punches didn't have the same effect vs Valera either, another big 175, as they did before vs guys more Bivol's size. Bivol is skilled enough to have success at 175, but it will always be an uphill battle because he's small. There are super middleweights, nay MIDDLEWEIGHTS, bigger than Bivol. I would be very curious to see the Charlos and Hurd outside of camp and compare them to Bivol outside of camp, because there may in fact be junior middleweights bigger than Bivol. So as good as Bivol is at 175, just imagine how spectacular he would be at 168. Callum Smith for one is indisputably bigger than Bivol. So is Benavidez. So is Badou Jack who up until recently was at 168.