Ward stops Kovalev in 8th Round

David Martinez, Recent Fights

By David Martinez / dmboxing.com

Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Hotel Events Center, Las Vegas, Andre Ward (32-0 / 16 by KO) scored an eighth round stoppage over Sergey Kovalev ( 30-2 / 25 by KO) to retain his WBA/WBO/IBF light heavyweight title belts.

The end came at 2:29 of round eight when referee Tony Weeks halted the bout after Ward hit a badly hurt Kovalev with three successive body punches, causing Kovalev to slump down against the ropes.

In round eight, prior to the stoppage, Ward threw a powerful straight right hand to prove the beginning of the end for Kovalev.

The fight was actually close up to round eight, with a couple of swing rounds that could have gone either way. Personally, I had Ward ahead 67-66, 4 rounds to 3, after seven rounds. The official judges’ scorecards were 67-66, 67-66 Ward, and 68-65 Kovalev.

According to CompuBox, Ward connected on 80 of 238 punches (34%), and Kovalev connected 95 of 407 (23%).

I thought some, but not all, of the low punches Ward was accused of were low.  Also, it was apparent to me, whether Tony Weeks was premature in stopping the fight or not, that it was inevitable what the outcome would be – at least to me!

 

One thought on “Ward stops Kovalev in 8th Round”

  1. I don’t think it was inevitable. He should have gotten 5 mins for the low blows.

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