I decided to make it early as I won't be able to have access to a computer next week as I will be going out of town for a few days and will be back the following week so will watch the fight later the following week.
But my thoughts on the fight is that it's going to be interesting.
I think if kovalev is on form and has a good game plan I can see him winning the fight even the first fight he was winning the first few rounds but the later rounds he lost it.
But also andre ward has become familiar with kovalev, which means has ward found out any new things he can use to his advantage, because in his first fight I could tell that the move up in weight showed he was the smaller fighter because his big efforts he put into beating kovalev appeared to have minimal impact on the natural light heavy weight kovalev who is known as the crusher, so props to ward for taking the fight (first one) and the second one too.
Would love to see ward win again, but I think if both at their best I think kovalev wins it by unanimous decision, but I hope i'm wrong.
Deep down I want to see Kovalev win it TBH.. I think he's a better belt holder than Ward, who never fights. So i'd like to see Kovalev win it and then fight Adonis Stevenson etc.. I imagine Ward will fight once a year if he defeats Kovalev again. So purely from a "best fighting the best" aspect, I think Kovalev is more hungry to fight and prove himself against anyone.. Ward is incredible but just not too active, kind of like mayweather but, even less consistent (huge periods of inactivity - though due to legal boxing issues recently).
As for who I think will win, I think Kovalev might actually win a decision in the second fight. You'd think Ward has Kovalev figured out but, not so sure. I think Kovalev will actually make some good adjustments, including just roughing Ward up more, making it a much more "dirty" fight.. but I think that'll play to his advantage, especially with his power.
I don't expect anything new from Ward.. so given that, i'm picking Kovalev for the split decision W.
pc!
