Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward Las Vegas Arrivals

BoxingNews24.com

By Allan Fox: Andre Ward (30-0, 15 KOs) and IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champ Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) both arrived for their grand arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday for their big fight on HBO pay-per-view this Saturday night. Both fighters looked in great spirits and confident. The two fighters will be facing each other at the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday. It should be a great fight.

Ward, 32, is a slight favorite with the odds-makers, but that doesn’t mean much though, because it’s impossible to know how he’ll do in the fight. Ward hasn’t fought anybody good since making his comeback last year. His only quality fighter of the three opponents he’s faced recently was Sullivan Barrera, who Ward beat by scores that were more lopsided than the actual fight.

Barrera lost his chances of winning the fight by failing to throw punches when he would come in close after throwing long shots from the outside. Ward would tie Barrera up, and the action would stop until they were separated. Barrera needed to use his size on the inside to get his shots off while he was being held, but he failed to do that.

“He’s the same height like me, same size. He’s strong,” said Kovalev to the boxing media about Ward at Tuesday’s Las Vegas arrivals for the two fighters. “He don’t have a punch like Mike Tyson, but he’s very smart and has very good defense. It’s very tough to hit the target. He has a lot of movement and defense. He’s doing very smart things. He’s going to be different with me than with the other guys,” said Kovalev.

In looking at some of Ward’s past fights while he was still in the prime of his career in 2012, he was getting hit a lot in his fights against Chad Dawson and Edwin Rodriguez. The main difference between those guys and Kovalev is the punching power and workrate. Neither of those fighters had Kovalev’s power nor did they have the same high work rate as him. They both got caught standing around and waiting for Ward to lead off.

Those were stupid mistakes on their part, because the only time they had success was when they were attacking Ward and being first. Dawson was getting the attention of Ward with his power shots. Ward was shaking his head after getting hit, as if to say that Dawson’s shots weren’t bothering him, but they clearly were. Dawson just was way too economical for his own good. To beat Ward, you’ve got to throw nonstop punches. Dawson was throwing a low number of punches per rounds. If Dawson had thrown 80 to 100 punches per round, he would have had Ward in major trouble in that fight, because Ward isn’t capable of throwing a lot of shots. He’s a pot shot fighter who turns red in the face when the pace gets pushed.

Kovalev’s keys to victory are very simple:

– Throw LOTS of shots at Ward. Even if his punches miss frequently, Kovalev must throw a high number of shots to keep Ward under the gun and helpless. Ward is only good when his opponents fight at a lazy pace, not throwing shots, and waiting forever before throwing. If all Kovalev does is hit Ward on his shoulders and chest, then he should do it, because he’ll still be landing and wearing Ward down, especially with the shoulder punches. Those are going to take something out of him if Kovalev hits him on the shoulders 60 to 80 times per round. It’s not easy to hit Ward to the head, but it’s very easy to hit him on the shoulders. Their always there for Kovalev to hit, so he’s got to hit what is there to be hit.
– Keep Ward under pressure the entire three minutes of each round. Do not let there be a second where he’s not having a punch thrown at him.

– Fight through the clinches. If Ward is going to hold constantly each time Kovalev throws a punch, then he needs to fight through those clinches. Kovalev can’t just give up and wait for the referee to break them, because Ward will be holding so that he slows the action down to a crawl. In other words, Ward will be trying to stall out the rounds in order to make sure that the rounds are decided by a small amount of punches. This is an old tactic that Bernard Hopkins used to use with him doing a lot of wrestling on the inside to slow fights down. It works if you’ve got a weaker fighter or a fighter that just passively gives up when held. If Kovalev lets Ward tie him up and hold for 10 to 20 seconds each time he gets in close, the rounds will be eaten up quickly with only a handful of punches deciding the rounds. You can bet that Ward will make sure he’s the one landing the shot before he initiates the holding. It’s call the ‘punch and grab’ technique. It works, especially when the referee allowing it to work by not taking points off for excessive holding. There are so few referees that control excessive clinching. It would be surprising if the referee working the fight on Saturday does anything to address Ward’s holding. That’s why Kovalev is going to need to take matters in his own hands by making sure he doesn’t just let Ward clinch him repeatedly to stall out the rounds, because that’s likely one of his major plans for the fight. Ward can’t fight Kovalev, because he doesn’t have the work rate or punching power to actually fight him. Ward must move or HOLD, and he can’t move like he used to because he’s gotten too old to move.

Ward’s keys to victory are as follows:

– Hold, hold and hold. Don’t let Kovalev throw punches. Grab him and make sure he only gets one or two shots in between each time that he’s held. If Kovalev has Ward hanging all over him on Saturday night, then he won’t be able to let his shots go.

– Try and move around the ring if possible. Ward doesn’t look like he can move anymore due to the weight he’s put on, his advancing age, and his years of inactivity. But if Ward can move around the ring, then he needs to try to. If Ward stands with his back against the ropes like he’s done in his three comeback bouts, he’s going to get smashed to oblivion by Kovalev. Ward can’t match Kovalev’s high work rate, and of course he can’t match his punching power either. Ward would have never been able to equal Kovalev in those departments even during his prime. Ward can only slow the fight down by holding or moving. He can’t actually fight Kovalev on even terms and match his punch output or his power.

Prediction

I don’t think Ward is capable of beating Kovalev. The Ward that I saw in his last three fights will get slaughtered by Kovalev. Ward is too immobile, too weak, and too economical with his punches for him to beat Kovalev. Even if Ward could find Ponce De Leon’s fountain of youth to bring him back to his prime of his mid-20s, he wouldn’t beat Kovalev, because he still wouldn’t be capable of matching him in the power or the work rate department. The only thing Ward could do is try and slow the action down by holding and wrestling. Kovalev and his trainer John David Jackson know how to negate the wrestling and stalling tactics of Ward. That means that Ward will be forced to try and fight Kovalev on Saturday instead of stalling out the rounds, and he can’t fight him. Ward doesn’t have the ability to beat Kovalev. He can only stall the fight to the point where he’s not capable of throwing more than 10 to 20 punches per round. Kovalev won’t let that happen, so Ward will lose.