Kovalev scolds Ward for skipping “Face Off” taping

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Former light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev is furious with Andre “SOG” Ward for what him supposedly skipping their “Face Off” with HBO’s Max Kellernan taping segment last Sunday for rematch on June 17 on HBO PPV at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to a source, RingTV was told that was Kovalev that failed to show for the “Face Off,” which was supposed to take place on Saturday instead of Sunday. It’s unclear what the disconnect was between the two fighters when it comes to the scheduling of the Face Off with Kellerman.

Kovalev and Ward were meeting to help drum up interest for their rematch next month. There’s not much time to try and get the boxing public interested in the second fight. Their previous match last November was a dull one, with Ward doing a lot of grappling on the inside after being dropped by him in round 2. That fight was barely watchable, as there prolonged periods where both fighters were doing nothing but wrestling. The referee was there and doing pretty much zero to break apart the wrestling. It was hard to watch unless you like wrestling, which I for one hate.
Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva was very upset about Ward not being there for the taping of the “Face Off” with Kellerman.

“HBO was set up to shoot a Face Off with Sergey and Ward today (Sunday),” Duva said to RingTV.com “And this morning, a few hours before the taping, HBO and I got an email from Roc Nation informing us that Andre had already left town. So unprofessional. And such disregard for the money wasted by both his promoter and Main Events.”

Here’s what Kovalev had to say about Ward on his Twitter account:

If there’s confusion as to the dates for the taping for the press conferences and what not for the Ward-Kovalev fight, then Kovalev’s promoters at Main Events needs to make sure that e-mails are sent out with them getting a carbon copy of the e-mails from HBO, so there’s no confusion. Both fighters should be on board with when and where the taping of the “Face Off” segments is going to take place. It’s unclear if there’s going to be a reschedule for the “Face Off” with Kellerman or not.

Maybe it won’t matter that there wasn’t a “Face Off” taping for the Ward vs. Kovalev fight. The boxing public will still want to see the fight even without the “Face Off” with Kellernan. I get the impression that the segments are mainly watched by the hardcore boxing fans anyway. It’s like preaching to the choir.

The boxing fans are either interested in seeing the Ward-Kovalev fight or they’re not. It would obviously help if the fight wasn’t on PPV, and if their previous fight was an interesting one instead of a boring 12 round wrestling match. I thought it was an incredibly boring fight, like watching paint dry in the afternoon sun. I thought the referee should have stepped in by the 4th round and started taking points off for the prolonged wrestling. Instead, the referee stood and watched. Someone should have offered him a chair so he could rest his legs, because he wasn’t doing anything other than watching the wrestling match like the rest of us boxing fans.

Ward was knocked down in the 2nd round by Kovalev in their fight last November. Up until that time, Ward was fighting Kovalev. However, from the 3rd round on, Ward took the fight to the inside and turned the fight into a long mauling contest for the remainder of the fight. Kovalev was totally unprepared for that kind of fight, and he seemed to tense up trying to pry Ward off of him. When you’re facing a grappler, and the referee isn’t on his J-O-B, then you have to work at getting an arm loose so that you can brain your opponent at close range.

Someone like Artur Beterbiev would be a nightmare for Ward if he used the grappling against him, because he’s so good at throwing short punches in the clinch with massive power. Beterbiev likes to throw repeated power shots when he’s held, and he’s able to get so much power on the punches. I don’t think for a second that Ward would even attempt to clinch with Beterbiev to turn the fight into a mauling contest, because I think he would realize from watching tape that it wouldn’t work. Beterbiev is a better inside fighter than Ward, a lot better in my estimation. The thing is, Kovalev doesn’t learn how to deal with Ward’s wrestling by the time they fight their rematch on June 17, he’s going to be in trouble.

Ward has already said he’s going to “start earlier” with the pressure that he put on Kovalev the last time. Ward isn’t saying that he’s going to take the fight to the inside, but it would seem highly likely that’s exactly what he’s going to do in the rematch. Kovalev was the better fighter consistently when the two were on the outside. The only thing that Ward was better at was fighting on the inside and throwing short punches with not much power on them. That’s what made the fight really hard to score. You had Ward’s short punches with little power on them being thrown on the inside, and then you had landing the harder shots when he would get to the outside and land. I know for a lot of boxing fans, they rated Kovalev’s power shots as being better than the 6 inch punches that Ward was throwing on the inside.

Ward beat Kovalev by controversial 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113 last November. There were a high number of boxing fans that thought that Kovalev should have been given the decision, because of him landing the cleaner shots when the two had separation from each other. Ward landed some nice jabs in the second half of the fight, but Kovalev was the one landing the power shots. Normally, the judges give the rounds to the fighter landing the harder and more effective blows, but in this case, they were giving most of the rounds to Ward in the second half of the fight. The boxing crowd favored Ward, which isn’t surprising because he’s the American and 2004 Olympic gold medalist.

Kovalev, who comes from Russia, lives in Florida on the opposite coast, and his fans are mainly in the New York area. Kovalev’s promoters should have pushed to have the fight in the New York area instead of letting it take place in Vegas, which would make him the visiting fighter instead of the fan favorite. It’s too late for Kovalev to do anything about the first. He’s also going to be fighting the rematch in Vegas. You can argue that the fight might as well be in Ward’s hometown of Oakland, California, because many of his fans from that area are likely going to be making the short trip to Vegas, which is a little over 500 miles away.