“You cannot hit below the belt, hold, trip, kick, headbutt, wrestle, bite, spit on, or push your opponent.”
The key word above is “below.”
Sergey Kovalev take heed.
Last night at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas – Andre Ward (32-0, 16 KOs) stopped Sergey Kovalev (30-2, 26 KOs) in Round 8 to retain the IBF, WBO, WBA light heavyweight titles.
A rematch of their controversial first fight won by Ward, controversy might reign again… And while it was warranted before, was it this time?
In the last two rounds, Ward unleashed monstrous body shots that forced Kovalev double over several times before the referee halted the action with Kovalev, having already been worked over, bent over against the ropes and not defending himself.
(And by the way, ducking below your opponent’s belt line, which Kovalev did often is, in fact, against the rules.)
But make no mistake about it… It was a crashing right hand to the head that badly hurt Kovalev and started the assault the that finished the fight.
…But back to the body shot that seemed to have caused controversy.
The ?belt? is defined as an imaginary line drawn across the body from the top of the hip bones.
Kovalev kept complaining to the referee he was being hit low and the referee, at least once, replied, “On the belt, on the belt.”
Instant replay clearly showed that.
?He was reacting to my body shots, and I knew I had him and I knew he was hurt,? Ward said. ?Am I No. 1 [in pound-for-pound rankings] now??
Moreover, a low blow that pulverizes a fighter is a punch to the groin a la Golota vs Bowe and Holmes vs Cooney. Ward’s shots were clearly not in the groin.
?Low blow, again, low blow. I don?t know why they stopped the fight,” Sergey stated afterwards.
“I want to get another fight. I?ll kick his [expletive]. I want to get a rematch again.?
If the shots weren’t low, why was Sergey doubled over?
Anyone who has boxed before will insist body shots hurt more than head shots. They make it harder to breath and take away your legs.
It’s not uncommon to see a fighter get KO’d by a body shot. In fact, Sergey has stopped opponents with body shots.
