- Last's weeks biggest fight also had some serious controversy surrounding its ending. The rematch between Andre Ward on Sergey Kovalev on HBO pay-per-view was highly anticipated but the ending left a bad taste in many fan's mouths. Like the first time around this fight was a close one but unlike the first fight the rematch wouldn't go the distance. The early rounds seemed to favor Kovalev but really every round was difficult to score. In the middle rounds Kovalev seemed to start to run out of gas again and Ward started to do some of his best work. Then in the eighth round Ward hurt Kovalev upstairs and followed that up with a body shot that Kovalev thought was low which caused him to complain to referee Tony Weeks. Moments later Ward followed up with a hard body shot that many felt was below the belt line. That hard punch was followed by another punch that looked low and the punch that would end the fight was clearly low. It was so low that Weeks could have stopped the action and given Kovalev time to recoverm if he was able. Instead with Kovalev wincing in pain from the low blow Weeks jumped in and stopped the fight. It was a bad stoppage that robbed Kovalev of his revenge, robbed Ward of a decisive finish, and robbed the fans of the same. Now Ward will ponder what to do next while Kovalev has to go back to the drawing board.
- The drama wasn't just relegated to the main event of HBO's pay-per-view card because the co-feature was controversial as well. That fight was between Big Time Boxing's number one pound-for-pound fighter Guillermo Rigondeaux and the undefeated Moises Flores. For most of the first round Flores swung wildly while Rigondeaux skillfully avoided every punch, making it look painfully easy in the process. At the very end of the first round the two men were exchanging punches when the bell rang. Each fighter was throwing punches after the bell and since Rigondeaux is the much better fighter his punches actually landed. Flores got caught on the chin, seemed to look at referee Vic Drakulich, and then dropped to the canvas. He was then counted out but that is when the drama started. Flores clearly appeared to be doing some acting and Drakulich seemed to have no idea what to do. At first it looked like Rigondeaux might get disqualified but eventually the fight was ruled a first round knockout win in his favor. That ruling might not stand for long but it does for now.
- The other two fights on Saturday's HBO pay-per-view card both turned out two be blowouts. One of those fights was between Dmitry Bivol, who could be the future of the light heavyweight division, and Cedric Agnew. Agnew looked like he just came to collect a check and he seemed highly reluctant to throw any punches while Bivol was able to do just about anything he wanted to. In the fourth round after hurting Agnew multiple times the fight was mercifully stopped, keeping Bivol's perfect record intact. The opening bout was also a mismatch and that fight was between the undefeated Luis Arias and the one loss Arif Magomedov. Magomedov's punches didn't appear to do much and Arias really looked impressive on his way to a fairly easy fifth round stoppage win.
- One of the last week's other fights aired on ESPN2 as a Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN card. That card was headlined by a 10-round bout between Pablo Cesar Cano and Fidel Maldonado Jr. Maldonado wasn't as experienced as Cano and was actually dropped in the fourth round. However, he wasn't badly hurt and was able to get back to his feet and fight on. After that knockdown Maldonado looked very good and he was able to outwork Cano on his way to a split decision victory.
- Jose Zepeda was also in action last week when he took on Miguel Zamudio in the main event of a beIN Sports Espanol card. Zepeda was the heavy favorite in that fight since Zamudio has been a notorious knockout victim and Zepeda would add another knockout loss to Zamudio's record when he stopped him in the sixth round.
WEEKLY RECORD: 4-2
MONTHLY RECORD: 10-3
OVERALL RECORD: 903-254-35
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