Sometimes an eye test tells more about what happened inside a boxing ring than the scorecards of three judges with apparent astigmatisms. That was the way you came to understand who won Saturday night?s light heavyweight unification title fight between champion Sergey Kovalev and challenger Andre Ward in Las Vegas.
Forget about the one-sided rants on HBO?s broadcast from Roy Jones Jr. and Max Kellerman. Forget about the ringside judges who not only pickpocketed the title from Kovalev, but committed strong-armed robbery on a Colombian kid named Darleys Perez in the semi-main event ? a one-sided victory three judges turned into the kind of defeat that steals the future from a young fighter.
Just take a look at the post-fight faces of Kovalev and Ward, or Perez and Maurice Hooker, the undefeated American who was handed a victory he knew he didn?t deserve and then headed to the hospital with a punctured ear drum.
In the more significant of the two fights, Ward was given a 114-113 victory and three of the four light heavyweight title belts that still should belong to Kovalev. When Kovalev arrived at the post-fight press conference to discuss this, his face was unmarked. He looked like someone getting ready to go into a ring rather than someone coming out of one. Ward showed up wearing sunglasses at midnight.
Who won again?
Ward was knocked down. His face was scraped and bruised, his eyes puffy. He rallied in the second half of the fight in the way great fighters do, but he was five points down with six rounds to go on two scorecards. There is simply no way he swept all six rounds.
While there were some in the crowd and at ringside who had Ward winning a close decision, the majority did not share that opinion. A crowd of 13,310 clearly favored Ward during the fight, but booed the decision. While it was petty theft compared to Perez ? who lost on two cards by a 97-93 margin he should have won by ? the end game was the same. The winner didn?t win.
?Everybody saw what happened,? Kovalev said. ?Come on. Look at his face and look at my face. Everybody saw who won.?
Well, not everybody. Three judges named Burt Clements, Glenn Trowbridge and John McKaie saw Ward doing enough to win by the thinnest margin. Certainly the fight was close, but a close fight doesn?t mean you give it to the guy on the wrong side of closeness.
You certainly could argue Kovalev faded, which he did. You could argue that was a result of Ward wearing him down with rough-house tactics on the inside. You could also argue wrestling is not boxing.
Ward would claim his inside work was superior, which it was, but it was not daunting. In the end, Kovalev outthrew and outlanded Ward. Add that he also dropped him and you have to wonder. Then you see those sunglasses. You didn?t have to wonder after that.
Kovalev scored with the heavier blows, as was written all over Ward?s bruised face. Ward did his share of damage as well, bloodying Kovalev?s nose and hurting him to the body, but in the end the crowd seemed well satisfied with the fight but only half satisfied with the result.
?It?s the wrong decision,? Kovalev said. ?I don?t want to say my opinion. The witnesses are here ? they saw it. I lost maybe three rounds the whole fight.
?Of course I want a rematch and I will kick his (expletive). I am (up) against it here. It is the USA and all the judges were from the USA. It?s a sport. Don?t make it politics. It is sport and I won the fight.?
Nevada always uses its own judges, so there was little the Russian-born Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KO) could do about the three Americans at ringside. Frankly, one doubts this was some expression of nationalism, although it gives you pause when you add in Hooker?s undeserved victory over Perez. Yet it seemed more a case of myopia, or expecting one thing and not seeing another.
?I didn?t expect this to be a blowout,? Ward (31-0, 15 KO) said. ?I?d love it to be a shutout but you have to win fights like this sometimes. I eked out a tough victory against a guy people thought would knock me out.?
Since Ward was a 2-1 betting favorite, one wonders how he arrived at that conclusion. In fairness, he did get hit in the head quite a lot.
?I showed I could eat a big shot and get up,? Ward continued. ?I felt I slowly broke him down. He didn?t want to be inside. Sergey has no inside game. That made all the difference.
?Those body shots drained him. Also I think me getting up drained him. More than any technical adjustment I made, it was that he could feel I was coming for him (after he got off the floor).?
Immediately after it was over, Ward?s trainer Virgil Hunter said they would soon begin preparing for a rematch, a sign he understood not everyone was denying what they?d seen. That thought was far from magnanimous, however. Kovalev had a guaranteed rematch clause and his promoter, Kathy Duva, made clear they would exercise it.
When the cards were read, Ward looked stunned for a moment before it hit him that he was the new WBO, WBA and IBF light heavyweight champion. Only then did he climb the turnbuckle in celebration, a celebration greeted with mixed reviews.
?No, I was not surprised when I heard the decision,? Ward claimed, even though he looked astonished. ?I don?t know where you got that from.?
He also didn?t know where Kovalev?s right hand came from in Round 2, when the champion stung Ward with a power jab. When the two launched simultaneous right hands behind it, Kovalev beat Ward?s counter and caught him flush in the face, driving him to the floor for only the second time in his career.
?I wasn?t happy about that knockdown, but I didn?t panic,? Ward said. ?It was a flash knockdown. I wasn?t hurt by it. As a matter of fact, I wasn?t hurt by anything he threw.?
Really? Then why the shades?
