Comments Thread For: Alvarez Makes Statement, Knocks Sergey Kovalev Out in Seven

[Boxing-1013]

which his point is void because 2 of the guys he mentioed (liston and foreman) losses were to a prime ali and a mid ali......u are a moron. If u can't see that a ko loss to one of if not the greatest heavy of all time is quite different then kovalov doing the in my feelings challenge to freaking alverez. I already explained that......his point is amateurish and silly haaahahahaha!!!

Dude just admit you were wrong lol...again he mentioned losses those guys had to bad fighters, not ATGs

[Diego Rodriguez]

You don't beat Kov with no ped testing. He has had three fights with VADA testing. He has lost all three.

Well IMO, and I think most, he won the first Ward fight. That said Ward is also an excellent fighter so just maybe that as more to do with his loss than PEDs. Ward was the best fighter he fought until maybe Alvarez.

I think his loses have more to do with competition than lack of PEDs.

[hitking]

BTW again, it's nothing racial with pointing out why Ward was hyped up. Let me try to break it down in detail.

90-95% of money in fight sports is spent by white/hispanics. Most of that percentage is spent by whites.

Most people spend money to root for fighters they can identify with. Race is a big identifier for people. They will also spend money to root against fighters who they can't identify with (often of another race).

Point being that for a black fighter to succeed he has to follow the Floyd model. Be talented, but also stay undefeated and be flashy enough to have white people want to see you lose. The more you win, the more your profile rises. It's like a snowball, and Floyd executed that strategy wonderfully.

Broner was all set to be the next Floyd, but he wasn't good enough. Ward was too, but he wasn't interesting enough outside of the ring.

Let's say hypothetically there was a super talented black boxer who can't speak English from the Ivory Coast. Do you really think he would get the same publicity and favorable treatment as a black American boxer? The only way a guy like that could succeed is if he played the villain. And if he can't speak English, then he has no chance of getting any hype.

The money is in hyping up US fighters, and there are a lot of really good US black fighters anyway, so it all works out.

But Ward's skills never matched his backstory - Gold medal Olympics, half white, half black. That all sounds great.

But if he was from Ghana no one would even know who he was. He would have a few legit losses, a few DQs, and would never be able to fight the way he did (would have had a lot of points taken off for dirty fighting).

Right, which is why black fighters throughout history have been major draws, even after loses. Tyson, Leonard, Ali, Louis just to name a view. And Tito was a “black” fighter that didn’t speak English. Didn’t seem to hurt him getting a push.

[Dr.Cool]

Well IMO, and I think most, he won the first Ward fight. That said Ward is also an excellent fighter so just maybe that as more to do with his loss than PEDs. Ward was the best fighter he fought until maybe Alvarez.

I think his loses have more to do with competition than lack of PEDs.

Could be. They only have VADA testing for the big fights. Still, the man is 0-3 with VADA testing and 32-0-1 without VADA testing.

But it is true, when you are fighting someone no one has ever heard of, there is no VADA testing, unless its a sanctioned WBC match. But Superman has held that title for years and years. Could be Kov just isn't that good. Guess we will never know.

[mrlopez]

Put a hurt on Kov. Congrats Champ

[Boxing-1013]

WTF are you talking about? Ward wasn’t hyped to be the next Floyd. He won the Olympic gold in 04. Floyd wasn’t even Floyd yet, at least in terms of marketability. Floyd didn’t become the “Money May” cashcow he would ultimately become until after the DLH fight.

And even from a boxing standpoint. Early in his career, most in the boxing community were extremely frustrated with how slowly Ward was being moved. That, combined with being dropped by Darnell Boone in one of his first couple fights had people thinking he was being protected and there were huge question marks about how legit he was. And when he entered the Super Six, a lot of people thought Mikkel Kessler, who was arguably the best super middle in the world,was too big a jump in competition for Ward. Not to mention, his personality and lifestyle were far too dry for anyone ever to believe that he would ever be the draw Floyd was.

Feel free to get on here and spew nonsense to support your agenda. But believe it or not, a couple of us have been following boxing for a very long time. And can easily call bullshi.t on the vast majority of the garbage you’re spewing.

I actually watched some of Ward's fights from the Olympics...check them out if you haven't. If you can honestly watch those and say that you see a slick boxer, I mean it just isn't there. Even then he was largely holding and clinching and I feel he was not separating from his opponents on a skill basis.

But yeah he was able to win a Gold medal before he was "Andre Ward." Obviously he has some degree of boxing/fighting skills.

But Ward's entire career, you are correct, he was very closely managed. He has always been the home fighter in all of his fights. Partially because of that, he retained his 0 on his record.

Once he got to a certain point in his career and was still undefeated, and TPTB realized how much money Floyd was making with his 0, they tried to prop Andre up to be the next Floyd.

As I'm sure you know, that was the impetus for the Super 6 tournament in the first place. The organizer of the tournament essentially said the purpose was to have Andre become the next Floyd.

And how could you argue that's what they were doing - he got to fight Kessler in Oakland!!! I mean how is that possible. All of his other fights in that tournament, Ward fought at home. Tell me how that is not some sort of American privilege...Kessler should have had all of those advantages, not Ward.

Almost everyone Ward fought in that tourney should have been the home fighter, not him.

But yeah TPTB didn't realize that even if they helped Andre keep his 0, he wasn't interesting enough outside the ring to make him into a Floyd 2.0. They miscalculated on that one

[kidbazooka]

Put a hurt on Kov. Congrats Champ

Beautiful display of boxing by Alvarez guy is the real deal.

[hitking]

Golovkin is a better P4P fighter than K IMO.

I think K is an excellent fighter but one step from that uber elite. I think by the end of the Ward series showed that, even though IMO he won the first. Tonight he got beat and yes I think Alvarez is the better fighter and would have been before K faced Ward the first time.

I think GGG is a better fighter than Kovalev. But I think Kovalev is more talented. Kovalev is a better technical boxer. He’s better defensively. He’s quicker. And he brings the same power. Where GGG gets him is in heart, will, and chin.

[vwelsh]

did anyone watch the fight. Alvarez started walking Kov back in the last two rounds. Especially that last round. Walk a bully backwards and the rest is easy work. Watch the fight. Come to you senses. Calm your emotions. Alvarez stuck to his plan and executed it spot on. Listen to his corner. They did exactly what they set out to do. I was going for Kov as I really didn't know Alvarez. I'm impressed.

[Boxing-1013]

Right, which is why black fighters throughout history have been major draws, even after loses. Tyson, Leonard, Ali, Louis just to name a view. And Tito was a “black” fighter that didn’t speak English. Didn’t seem to hurt him getting a push.

The 0 helps in getting the top notch money. People still tune in to see Broner get beat but not as much as if he was undefeated.

People tuned in to see Tyson's frightening power and then the freak show.

Leonard was like the surrogate white boxer in that era of Hagler, Hearns and Duran. He marketed himself very well.

Everyone hated Ali and that's why they tuned in to see him lose....I mean come on man you know that. People only loved him after he retired and got sick

Joe Louis was somewhat revered but those were also different times. He was American before anything else due to the World Wars that were happening/had happened.

Joe Louis was also a complete gentleman so it attracted a lot of fans as well