Kovalev: Right Now It's 1-1; I Want a Third Fight With Ward

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Just in case anyone takes scoop's nonsense seriously. Holyfield was a showtime fighter before Douglas. Whitaker had been on HBO a handful of times already.

[Kilsby]

Just in case anyone takes scoop's nonsense seriously. Holyfield was a showtime fighter before Douglas. Whitaker had been on HBO a handful of times already.

Excellent work!

[man]

as dirty as ward might be and as questionable
the ending, kovalev doesn't deserve another
shot. ward adapted to him and the two will
never have a competitive situation again.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Just in case anyone takes scoop's nonsense seriously. Holyfield was a showtime fighter before Douglas. Whitaker had been on HBO a handful of times already.

Excellent work!

He was my favourite fighter and it was tough to find people that had showtime early on. I almost missed the qawi rematch.

[Badhusker]

Kovalev isn't getting a rematch.

Neither HBO nor Andre Ward would be interested, due to a third bout being commercially unviable. The ratings for their first two bouts weren't good and both men would inevitably expect to be paid handsomely.

I actually doubt that Kathy Duva's Main Events would financially back the promotion of an event that could potentially incur a financial loss.

Andre Ward is no longer contracted to HBO and Kovalev isn't in the mandatory challenger position for any of his belts either.

I'm not even sure if there are that many hardcore boxing aficionados that possess the appetite to see another Ward-Kovalev contest.

Sergey needs to rebuild his career and give the audience a reason to be willing to pay to see him participate in another marquee PPV bout.

Once again, 5 paragraphs of BS that no one will read.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

That's actually got some funny shit in it. HBO loves ppvs, they risk no money putting them on. Kathy diva paid kovalev strictly off of the ppv sales so she would love it too. Ward got paid out the ass by roc nation so he'd love it too. Rn would be the only part of the equation that might not look forward to losing money. Ironically, the only participant that nitwit neglected.

[Best Coast]

Kovalev says he and Ward are now 1-1?!?

Sounds like he's changing his story...before he was saying he won them both.

[RScarf1]

He's still a monster. haymon isn't daring to match his fraud stevenson with kovalev is he? Kovalev beat Ward in the first fight and was winning the second then either ran out of gas of Jackson's sleeping pill took effect. Ward's win was hardly sensational - NO NETWORK wants to invest in him. Ward retired because he can't get a TV contract. Ward retired leaving NOTHING on the table.

It reminds of Pernell Whitaker / Holyfield / Main Events. Whitaker was a hard sell on his own but he got his HBO dates on the coattails of Holyfield. Main Events used the leverage of Holyfield to get HBO to buy Whitaker fights too. Ward has no such luxury and thus retired early. Or rather fake retired, he will be back next year without a doubt.

I agree with your post about Ward except that I don't think Ward is ever coming back. He would not want to jeopardize his undefeated record and his pound for pound top rating. There is no amount of money that will bring him back to boxing. I read in the New York Post this quote from Kovalev: "I said before the fight I would stop his boxing career. I guess it's true." Ward does not want to face Kovalev for a third time with Kovalev probably having a better trainer for him. Ward does not want to fight Adonis Stevenson even though he is 40 years old. Ward probably would not want to fight Badou Jack either. He would also not want to move up to cruiserweight and fight Tony Bellew. He probably did not even want to fight Kovalev in the rematch. If he won a wide unanimous decision against Kovalev, I think he would have retired. There was so much criticism of the scoring in that fight that he had to fight Kovalev again and win by any means necessary in order to maintain his legacy and ensure that he would be inducted into the hall of fame someday. And now there is another BS article from Fight Hype stating that Ward has ruffled the feathers of fans and the media because of his "old school" boxing skills and his discipline to learn the craft of boxing which has unfairly damaged his reputation. Bear in mind that many people believe that Kovalev won the first fight. Ward is rated No. 147 on the all-time pound for pound boxrec list. That is just above George Foreman. He had a hall of fame career, but there are a lot of boxers that had more accomplished careers than Ward.

[montrealsuper]

Holyfield became an HBO fighter after he beat Bowe. And Whitaker road his coattails with all those HBO dates thanks to Main Events smart negotiating. Whitaker was not a major draw on his own with his less than spectacular style. But he had the right connection to Main Events and Holyfield.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Whitaker was a long time HBO fighter by then. Holyfield/Douglas, Holyfield/Foreman, Holyfield/Holmes, they were all TVKO aka HBO PPV's. Not that you have a clue what you're talking about to begin with, but once in a while I clown you just because I can.

[asdfjkl]

For me it's 2-0 for Kovalev actually.