Andre Ward rallied from a second-round knockdown and won the final round on two judges’ scorecards to defeat Sergey Kovalev on Saturday night in Las Vegas, taking the WBO, WBA and IBF light heavyweight titles from the Russian-born champion.

All three judges had Ward winning 114-113. Ward, who was the WBA super middleweight champion from 2009 to 2013, improved his record to 31-0, including 8-0 in world title fights.

Kovalev, who outlanded Ward 27-13 through the first three rounds (according to CompuBox), lost for the first time in 32 fights. Kovalev (30-1-1) went past the fifth round for the ninth time in his pro career.

Ward was more accurate as the fight went on, as the chart shows, outlanding Kovalev 80-74 over the final six rounds. Ward won each of the last six rounds on two scorecards and five of six on a third. The challenger outlanded Kovalev in four of the final seven rounds, according to CompuBox.

CompuBox showed that Ward connected on 34 percent (116 of 338) of his punches. Kovalev threw more punches but connected on a smaller percentage (126 of 474, 27 percent). Kovalev landed more power shots (78) than Ward (61), according to CompuBox.

Kovalev entered the fight ranked third in fewest opponent punches landed per round (7.3), according to CompuBox. Ward landed more than that Saturday -- 9.7 per round -- but still less than the weight class average of 16.1.

The 126 punches Kovalev landed were the most landed on Ward since he faced Sakio Bika in November 2010.

Kovalev had knocked out 12 of his previous 14 opponents. Only two of 11 opponents in his 12-round fights had lasted all 12 rounds (Bernard Hopkins and Isaac Chilemba, both of whom lost to Kovalev by unanimous decision).

Historical context

Ward became the seventh fighter to win titles at super middleweight and light heavyweight. The first fighter to do so was Thomas Hearns, who won the light heavyweight belt in 1987 and the super middleweight title in 1988. The most recent before Ward was Bruno Girard, who won the super middleweight belt in 2000 and the light heavyweight title in 2001. In between were all-time greats including Roy Jones Jr. and Sugar Ray Leonard.

This was the seventh fight in boxing history (but the third in 2016) in which two undefeated fighters, both with 30 or more wins, fought for a world title. On Sept. 10, Gennady Golovkin defeated Kell Brook and Román González defeated Carlos Cuadras.

In the final few days before the Ward-Kovalev fight, bettors put more money on Ward than on Kovalev. On Tuesday, Ward was a minus-140 favorite (meaning a bettor would have to risk $140 to win $100). The closing line, according to Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, was minus-185. Kovalev moved from a plus-120 underdog Tuesday to plus-165 on the closing line.