That last Andre Ward fight was suspicious. Three American judges gave him the decision after he clearly was overpowered by the larger Russian Kovalev. Ward fought the best he could. But in my opinion he never should have moved up to this higher weight class in the first place. And I’ve been watching Kovalev for the last 4 years and he is a fucking monster and knocks everyone out. Seen him sustain a broken jaw and then knock his opponent out anyways. So I was not surprised Kovalev was able to knock Ward down. Nor was I surprised Ward was able to dance and jab well through parts of the fight. But Ward was more seriously threatened, hurt, and beat up in this match. And Kovalev had great footwork and used his own jab well also, as well as his power hand obviously.
Boxing sucks because you can know ahead of a fight that the underdog is a better fighter at a given weight class, but that the refs will never allow what actually happened in the fight to be reflected in the decision. Instead they always side with the breadwinning current champ, because there is pressure on them from casinos and sports commissions, as well as them tending to always vote for the American fighter over any other country’s fighter.
The solution for this is to return to the old days where there is no round limit to the fights. Fight till one drops or throws in the towel. A past relative of mine won a championship in 42 rounds! : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Conley
–Deplorable Steve