Boxing

Watched ward v brand last night.ward looked very impressive.controlled the fight from start to finish and was regularly switching to southpaw for the second part of the fight.only thing is either brand has a solid chin and is a tough mo fo or ward is seriously lacking power.tagged brand countless times and bar the smallest leg wobble ward didnt move him.quality operator ward though.cant wait for the kovalev fight.
 
Hunter talks Ward vs. Kovalev
Andre Ward got past the small and old fighter Alexander Brand (25-2, 19 KOs) that his promoters at Roc Nation Sports lined up for him last Saturday night in his showcase fight on HBO Boxing.

Ward is now facing the real thing in IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev on November 19 in his next fight. Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter thinks that Kovalev will be wondering about whether Ward will be switching to southpaw during their fight on November 19.
Ward used the southpaw stance during the 6th round against Brand last Saturday and it didn’t work out too well for him. Brand belted Ward a few times with right hands when he was fighting southpaw. Ward gave up on the idea quickly and fought the rest of the fight out of the orthodox stance.

“I take Kovalev as being an intelligent fighter and he’s been in the game long enough. I think in that situation, he would probably ask himself logical questions,” said Hunter to Fighthype.com. “Would I have to deal with southpaw or not? What are the things that are coming to the table…You have to have more than power. You have to have more than skill. You have to have a lot of other ingredients that come to fruition in situations like that. Number one is being able to perform under those lights.”

Kovalev looked bored in watching the Ward vs. Brand fight live at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. Kovalev didn’t come right out and say the fight was boring, but he did say he saw ‘nothing new’ from Ward that he hadn’t seen before from him. It was a safety first fight from start to finish from Ward, and he appeared unwilling or unable to pull the trigger on his punches in the fight.
Kovalev has to be thinking that he can outwork Ward by throwing 50 to 80 punches per round. At 32, Ward doesn’t look capable of throwing more than 30 punches per round tops and most of those punches are harmless jabs. Ward never had a high work rate in the prime of his career, but not that he’s restarted his career after a two-year layoff, he’s throwing even less punches and not moving around the ring like he used to when he was younger.

The boxing experts like Freddie Roach and Abel Sanchez both have noticed how much Ward has lost from his game. The less attentive hardcore and boxing fans mistakenly think Ward is the same fighter he once was, but he clearly isn’t the same guy. I think Ward is fighting at 50% of what he was before, and that’s me being generous.

bnme

 

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