Only 2 of 3 had Ward winning the 12th, so that's a step up I guess

They gave Ward all of the last 6 rounds (save for one judge giving Kovalev the 12th). Ugh that's bad judging at best

Hah. I've gotta admit those cards look a lot like the judged went "oh **** Ward is behind gotta catch him up". Round 10 and 12 stand out as strange to me.

Anyway this was a great fight

Their official scorer had Kovalev by a wide margin, at the top of what I thought was fair.

Roy Jones and Max Kellerman disagreed, but didn't offer up any clear round by round scores. They were cheerleading Ward though (they're his co-commentators regularly, so it's not really unexpected).

If I chop the close rounds I get to 115-113 Kovalev, which Rafael and Christ had (I think Christ is better than any judge out there, he never really turns in a bad card).

Looking forward to the rematch. Kovalev was super prepared here and while Ward was shellshocked early, he responded very well.

Biggest loser tonight (and every night for awhile now) is Adonis Stevenson, who just keeps getting older and less relevant.

looking at his twitter, this appears to be identical to connor reubusch's card

No doubt about it. Boxing & the people who run the show in it have always been tainted & I guess it always will be that way. Obviously I agree with what most of the posters have said about it. I also heard that the Judges all gave the 12th to Ward.

Today the term Boxing Judges is an Oxymoron. The fight before the main bout was also a joke. Undefeated young guy vs. the veteran boxer who was in there to give youngster another fight win & still undefeated. Funny thing - it went the distance and the vet clearly schooled the youngster & was so happy until the JUDGES robbed him too.

I think Harold Lederman is a good scorer for the HBO PPV fights. And he had both losers winning & it wasn't close...it was in the medium win range. As the announcers said, u could see Ward's surprise when he heard the verdict. I will never watch another PPV fight. This was built with all the usual hype.

Ward is a very boring fighter to watch, which he seldom does.You pretty much knew Kovalev would have to KO him to win. The fight was also a clinch/hold fest. A child could score these better. It is easy to see why MMA & the UFC are gaining more fans. Although, they also score some fights bad......they are always giving you good fights all the time because of the way it is set up.

Yep - will never do another PPV even if it is GGG against the boxer that would have the best chance to beat him. I didn't pay to watch Manny's last fight. I think that people who do a PPV should have remotes that will do the fight scoring. YEP, NO MORE PPV BOXING OR ME.

Bob Arum, Golden Boy etc. are all snakes in the grass. Tyson called Don King.....Reptillian

Kevin21,

Is CJ Ross a blood relative of yours?

Yeah that result doesn't sit well with me despite it being a great fight, and not just because I had cash on Kov to win.

Doubt I spring for another PPV myself, like the poster above.

Like a few on here I backed Kovalev by decision but honestly felt Ward won. Not sure if I was influenced by the Sky commentary though as they all had Ward winning, Malignaggi had it by 4.

I've had a few hours sleep and might re-watch it later and see if I have a different outcome but I def think it is how you view a fighter winning rounds. If you like the come forward, throw more punches (hit or miss) then you obv will side with Kovalev but if your like me and concentrate more on actual scoring shots and cleaner work then you prob side with Ward (his work in close was so much better imo). I just thought Ward grew into the fight whereas Kovalev became more and more frustrated because he couldn't catch Ward clean. You could see in his body language in the later rounds how mad he was getting, was throwing some pretty wild punches and that obv isnt a good look esp when your missing by a distance.

I def wouldn't call in a robbery no matter what way the result went.

That was absurd

Why won't boxing do anything at all about judging? I get it's very crooked but why aren't they held more accountable? Does anyone go back and review their cards and grade them and offer critique? They are faceless decision makers and you feel for a guy like Kovalev who said it was the biggest fight of his life. Can chosen judges be a part of contract negotiations, if so that's pretty brutal to agree to 3 USA judges. Too hard to fly guys in from different countries with no piss in the fight?

Just seems like boxing could try to make it's product better in the face of the MMA but they don't even care to. Still enjoyed the fight and had me yelling at the tv more times than probably the previous ten fights I've watched. Kovalev in rematch probably overaggros and goes for knock out, this time gets gassed and Ward points him to death but will watch.

Boxing really does need a change in how scoring works. Its very annoying how people get revolted and call it robbery after a great close fight like this.

honestly if you are still watching boxing for the judges' result i don't know what to tell you

Not perfect but I think the best thing to do would be to post scores after every round.

this was a robbery...plain and simple. I have watched boxing for a long long time, this just makes me sick.

Kovalev hits so much harder than Ward its not even funny, so when he throws more lands more and knocks him down and hurts him badly in the fight he deserves to win.

follow the $$$ folks like always , 1 guy is making $5 mil for this fight and is very sellable as an American star. and the other guy is Russian and speaks broken English.

This fight is perfect to rewatch with the sound off....so you don't get Kellerman and Lampleys nuthugging of Ward

I think they need to find a way to give the fight to the "consensus" winner most of the time.I had Ward winning yesterday but Kovalev was the consensus winner it seems. Maybe have 3 ringside judges + 3 TV judges + a stats judge or something along those lines for the biggest fights at least.

I didn't see any nut-hugging. i thought Lederman was crazy with his scorecard though.And btw I was rooting for Kovalev and really wanted him to ko Ward in that 2nd round.

Per compubox, if you sort by pinches landed the score is:

I have seen some robberies down the years watching this sport but this doesn't even come close to being in that category.

If you want to see a robbery just look at the fight before the ME

How do you score the 10th and 12th for Ward like the judges did? The problem is not finding a 114-113 for Ward, it is the way the judges did it which suggest they had incentive to give the fight to Ward.

so the guy who hits MUCH MUCH harder and had a knockdown should win.

Browser has it right. Judges that don't care about power are a huge part of the problem in this sport. Last night was a great example. 8 inch punches in the clinch (and still falling short in the punch stats) does not win 7 rounds.

Ward was getting rocked by jabs and it clearly showed.

The amount of work Kovalev would've had to do to win last night the way this fight was judged is ridiculous.

Judges aren't trained well enough nor paid well enough and the rules are far too ill defined.

The scoring system alone is so stupid. There is zero reason to score 10-9 when you can just score 1-0 (and 2-0 instead of 10-8). That decision has likely cost boxing tens of millions of dollars. It just turns off new fans that happen to glance at the game and instead of focusing on the fun and sport of it, they're completely turned off by the foreign scoring. Totally unnecessary and adds nothing. /rant

How do you guys give round 4 to Ward?

Kovalev's uppercut about halfway through the round and his jab towards the end were the two best punches in the round, perhaps the only two clear head-jerking shots in the round. Neither fighter had any great body work done (they each had a few short clinch shots to each other's head and body, arguably Kovalev's side of the head shot in a late clinch was the most damaging shot of that type...). Ward literally landed nothing of note the entire round.

Rewatch it, put it on half speed if necessary, start at 12:47 for round 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuV9pqA5Ka0

All three judges actually gave Kovalev round 4, it seemed clear to me live and even more clear on replay.