and here we go

Chilemba just expending so much energy moving around the ring in basically every round. Guy looks to be in really good shape too. Hard to keep it up when you're getting hit with the power jab and some of those body shots, even if he's made Kovalev look foolish and predictable for stretches.

What happened with Sergey there? Didn't test Chilemba early in the round and try to do him in there. Seemed a bit drained.

Regardless of the outcome, Chilemba has nothing to be ashamed of.

Kovalev looks a little tired this round, a bit last round too. Needs to keep the pressure and punches on.

Did Kovalev break his right hand or something? He's not throwing enough. Definitely some stamina issues showing.

Chilemba got that round.

Kovalev is gassed. Chilemba has a bit more in the tank and took the last two rounds.

96-93 Kovalev

Kovalev is gassed, jeeze. Chilemba still seems to have a bit left, could take the last two and at least make it look more reasonable 115-112 or 116-111 type score.

Chilemba again with a round!

This is a pretty bad showing for Kovalev. Ward should wipe him out barring any stupid mistakes.

105-103 Kovalev

I don't buy that Kovalev is distracted like what seems to be the narrative, just hasn't figured Chilemba out for the most part.

Doesn't bode well for Ward but at least they'll be some potentially juicy odds available on him now.

Chilemba should be proud.

Kovalev though...that's bad. He looked so one-dimensional. No defense, no footwork, poor endurance. Ward can pretty easily exploit this

115-112 Kovalev

Guessing he didn't train as hard as necessary, his endurance was pretty poor there.

The footwork really takes a dive and punch speed slows when he gets that way, yowza.

I think it's 116-111 though. Chilemba won 4 rounds I think.

I don't buy the slacking in training narrative. He's fought nobodies in warm-up fights and blew through them and looked great. He just fought a guy that made him look pretty bad. That won't bode well for him against Ward.

meh

chilemba has never been stopped and has been in with some damn good opponents. i'm surprised the fight happened like this but always knew it was a possibility. i wonder how much this will shift the ward-kov odds. i still believe in krusher but this was not good

The nobodies are easier to hit and go down more easily though. Chilemba is no joke, but he should've been systematically beaten down with that power. Kovalev executed OK for most of the first 7 rounds on that strategy, but then seemed to just lose it, get slower, more jumpy and less balanced. That points to endurance to me, not an injury or skill issue.

Definitely an endurance problem but also technique. Sergey basically walks straight in when he goes on the offensive and backs up straight when disengaging. There's not a whole lot of lateral foot movement or upper body movement. Just hopes to catch counterpunches on his arms as he digs in with his power shots. That's simply not going to be good enough against Ward. Ward will be able to time Sergey as he comes in. Remember when Froch was supposed to be able to beat Ward on the inside with his punishing power? Well, that didn't happen and Ward fought surprisingly well inside.

Toss that on top of endurance problems and I really don't think Ward is going to have much trouble with Kovalev unless Ward looks horrible in his tune-up fight also. I really think the fight will look a lot like Ward/Froch.

I think it looks more like the Kovalev Hopkins fight, but more competitive. I'm going to say 8-4 Kovalev type win, with Ward just not doing enough in too many rounds, even if Kovalev can't land clean power bomb headshots at will.

I agree with all of your assessments, particularly the straight forward and back, but Chilemba landed a lot of his cleaner counters when Kovalev rushed in carelessly too, he won't do that as much vs Ward. Froch was also smaller than Ward, Ward is a pretty big dude. Froch is also not as strong as Kovalev, though he boxes better and likely has a better chin. Not sure boxing and chin are the strong traits you want to matchup with Ward, power might be more valuable as it's almost fruitless to try to outbox Ward and he's unlikely to knock you out too.

Chilemba definitely took some punishment tonight, even if it wasn't clear oooh and ahhh headshots like usual. I'm chalking most of the poor performance up to homecoming in Russia, distractions and clearly an opponent that would need a prayer power shot to knock him out. We'll see though, super intriguing. I'm betting Kovalev at +150 or better for sure, maybe slightly lower too.

I saw the fight. I think you guys were being kinda tough on Kovalev. He clearly won the fight. He just got tired and took off rounds 10 and 11. He clearly hurt Chilemba in rounds 7, 8 and 12. He just didn't have the conditioning to keep it up all fight.

Also, I like how in round 12 Kovalev did some type of Judo throw on Chilemba and Lampley claimed that Chilemba tackled him instead. Some pretty serious homerism there.

kovalev is an hbo cash cow so understandable heh

Can kell brook hurt GGG? I Donno much about him. He tends to fight people I have never heard of in the middle of the day so don't really follow him.

Lemieux hit GGG clean a few times and it didn't seem to do much, making me skeptical a WW is going to be able to hurt him.

I am genuinely curious if Camelos body work could open GGG up. But it doesn't look like we will ever find out, at least not before GGG is visibly slowed down by age.

Ben - I doubt it, Golovkin seems to hit harder than any other middleweight and take a punch about as well as any. I agree with Kevin's earlier assessment.

The prospect of either a massive upset or Brook being punched very hard in the face is quite appealing.

Surprise! Manny's coming back! Looks like October 29th or November 5th in Vegas. Opponent TBD.

http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id...ight-las-vegas

Who could manny sell a PPV against this fall? I am not sure he could headline a successful card anymore without another Big name with him.

Cotto?

breidis prescott v the WOLF guy with long last name who lost last time in a game fight with lipinets a couple months ago are fighting right now on FS1. i like this tuesday night boxing business. fun first round should be a good fight

For Manny fight Dan Rfael mentioned Danny Garcia or Adrian broner as 2 possibilities. I guess that would be good for Manny as neither of,those guys are going to be big threats but Are either of thise guys big enough names to sell a PPV?