Bout likely leaves few salivating for rematch

The hope of boxing was that it wouldn’t produce boredom, that when the conclusion of Andre Ward against Sergey Kovalev arrived Saturday night before 13,310 at T-Mobile Arena, a mainstream fan base watching might want to see it again.

For this, the light heavyweight championship could be considered a success.

Not so much on other levels.

The Mountain West of weight divisions didn’t produce the all-time classic many in the sport had desired — far from it — but in taking the title from Kovalev by unanimous decision, Ward set the stage for a rematch of two of the world’s best fighters.

I suppose Ward is now the accepted pound-for-pound king.

I suppose that doesn’t mean much to most people.

But at this point, or at least until Floyd Mayweather Jr. comes out of retirement or Canelo Alvarez decides to give Gennady Golovkin a shot, a rematch of Ward-Kovalev stands as the best boxing can hope for.

Which is beyond telling, because I’m not sure most of those who watched on Saturday would want to see it again.

The scores of 114-113 in favor of Ward across all three judging cards would have surprised many who saw the first few rounds, which included a right from Kovalev that dropped the challenger in the second. At that point, it seemed possible the fight might not last as long as the Russian national anthem, which would give anything from Pink Floyd a run for its duration.

The fight didn’t produce any sort of memorable action beyond the one knockdown, but instead offered more hugging and clutching over the first seven or eight rounds than you might see during the slow-dance portion of senior prom.

Put it this way: If you get knocked down as Ward did, you usually have to do a lot more to win a unanimous decision.

Robert Byrd is usually the sort of referee who will step in and break up clutches quickly, but not on this night, allowing far too much of it over 12 rounds. Byrd waited too long on several occasions to separate the fighters.

“It was ridiculous,” said Kathy Duva, Main Events promoter for Kovalev. “It was the wrong decision. The grabbing was outrageous. Andre Ward has a great future in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, because I haven’t seen that much wrestling since Conor McGregor last week.

“(Kovalev) won the first six rounds and had a two-point round in the second, so how the hell does he lose a decision on points? How can a referee allow that much grabbing?

“We absolutely will have a rematch. We have 30 days to make that decision, but we already made it.”

Said Kovalev, who lost for the first time in 32 professional fights: “Of course I want a rematch, and I will kick his ass.”

Translation: Donald Trump winning the presidency might have soothed American-Russian relations, but this decision will probably set them back.

I’m not sure any of it means anything. Boxing isn’t dead, but it’s slipping further and further behind the UFC for excitement and intrigue and star power. If this were a race between the two entities the last year, the UFC went all Usain Bolt and pulled far ahead.

At many levels, boxing continues to fade from relevance. McGregor and his skill and antics and personality have made sure of that. There isn’t a more famous active athlete in combat sports, and he will be the first to remind you.

The pay-per-view undercard on Saturday was just above brutal and a tad below awful, this after pre-fight concerns centered on the large number of tickets still available and guesses to how poor the PPV numbers might prove to be.

Truth is that promoters failed badly in not putting the professional debut of two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields on the PPV portion of the event. Shields won a unanimous four-round decision against Franchon Crews in a fight that saw more action than most of those that followed for anyone willing to pay the $60 to watch.

The win means a lot more hardware for Ward, who added the WBA Super World Light Heavyweight, IBF World Light Heavyweight and WBO World Light Heavyweight titles to his resume. He is 32 and had fought only four times since September 2012, and his grabbing and clutching early Saturday against an elite opponent showed such rust.

But when the scores were tallied, only one judge didn’t give him the final six rounds.

It was just enough. Barely.

“I was not surprised when I heard the decision,” said Ward, the former Olympic and super-middleweight world champion, who remains unbeaten in 31 professional fights. “I know it was a close fight. (Kovalev) did everything I expected him to do. He started to show up as I expected. He started to fight like I expected. Of course, I would do a rematch.”

That appears as if it will happen, but whether it gets those mainstream fans’ blood flowing is more than debatable.

It wasn’t a terrible fight once all the grabbing and clutching ceased over the last several rounds, but it was far from historic. Far from classic.

More times than not while watching, it sort of left us with this question: When does Claressa Shields fight again?

Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.