Saturday Night Bedlam on HBO

Saturday night’s Ward-Kovalev II, ‘The Rematch’, turned into a rather entertaining PPV, albeit not in the ways many of us expected. After starting the night with two somewhat dreary performances – especially the joke of a bout between Bivol and Agnew – the HBO card spiralled into amusing circus at the end of the first round of the Rigondeaux-Flores fight and put the icing on the entertainment cake with an exciting while controversial finish to Ward-Kovalev.

Rigondeaux-Flores

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The aftermath of the Rigondeaux-Flores fight was a debacle of WWE proportions. Naturally, as a childhood wrestling fan and overall drama aficionado I found the entire thing wildly amusing. I was in tears by the time Jim Lamlpey had brought Bob Bennett, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, back on air to inform him that he was being told by HBO executives that they had meant to inform Bennett that to their eyes and ears that Rigondeaux had knocked Flores out AFTER the bell instead of BEFORE, which is what Bennett had claimed he had been told and had reported this to referee Vic Drakulich, who subsequently ruled the fight a knockout win in Cuban champion’s favor. Bennett responded to this information but declaring that if that was the case then Rigondeaux should be disqualified.

It is hard to tell what exactly was going on behind this ruling. Why didn’t Vic Drakulich have access to the fight audio when watching the replay himself? How in the world was the message conveyed to Bennett that it was a knockout before the bell? HBO made a point very quickly to say that they never meant to indicate that the punch was before the bell in the immediate aftermath of the ruling. So, what happened? Was boxing being ‘boxing’ here and scrambling to ensure the favorite didn’t lose? That seems a little conspiratorial especially in light of how quickly the Nevada State Athletic Commission has worked since Saturday to deal with the controversy and is now expected to rule the bout a no decision. I think that is probably the best decision considering that I, like Paulie Malignaggi, believe that Flores was flopping like a fish looking to ‘steal’ Rigondeaux’s championship and the no contest will likely ensure a rematch.

‘The Rematch’

Saturday’s main event left me, and I assume many others, with an odd sense of disappointment, satisfaction, and frustration. Ward had clearly figured out Kovalev, more or less, and capitalized on it to finish the fight in the 8th round. The stoppage was early despite Kovalev being pummelled into the ropes and the body shots were so ‘borderline’ that it’s certainly easy to consider them low blows. Kovalev was hurt regardless of what he had to say after the fight and I don’t think he would perform any better in a third bout. Ward is the better boxer, fighter, and should be champion. That being said, I can’t shake off the feeling that Kovalev was given the shaft through all this because of the unfair decision in their first fight. Ward winning the rematch by means of some pretty controversial body punches only serves to highlight the unfairness of that first decision. Lastly, the fact both fights were financially and popularly unsuccessful practically guarantees there won’t be an already improbable rematch, leaving Kovalev little to do besides stew in bitterness before looking elsewhere in a light heavyweight division that Ward is talking about leaving.

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The Ward-Kovalev rivalry gave us a lot of what we were hoping for in the fights themselves but their lack of commercial success and odd outcomes ultimately makes it a bit of a sad and underwhelming tale marked by moments of brilliance overshadowed by referee and judge decisions. What boxing fans wanted to see was two champions meet mano-y-mano, testing out our hypotheses concerning which fighter was greater in that glorious and bloody sweet scientific 12 round experiment we call a boxing match. We’d been craving such a matchup between clear division kings ever since Mayweather stopped fighting anyone with a chance of victory. We had it on the table and somehow, almost inexplicably, we were robbed of satisfaction by two decisions, while passably understandable, lack true finality.

Thankfully, however, we are blessed with another mega fight between kings of their divisions in September: GGG vs. Canelo. Knowing these two sluggers, I think we’ll get what we were looking for in Ward-Kovalev after all.