Andre Ward says he’s tempted to shut-up the haters

BoxingNews24.com

By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) says he’s tempted to give Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) a rematch so that he can prove that his win over him wasn’t a fluke thing, and also to shut-up all the haters that have been talking about him. Ward beat Kovalev by a close 12 round unanimous decision three months ago on November 19.

The boxing public largely saw Kovalev as the winner of that fight rather than Ward, but the three judges assigned to the fight gave him a narrow 114-113 x 3 victory. The fans didn’t see it the way Ward saw the fight, as they felt that Kovalev won the fight by a fairly wide scores. Ward’s reluctance to agree to the rematch with Kovalev has a lot of the fans seeing him as scared.

Kovalev isn’t going to wait around forever on the Ward fight. If he can’t get Ward to agree to a rematch, then he’s going to move on in another direction. Kovalev can go after WBA World light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, who he previously knocked out in 2013. Kovalev can also go after WBC champion Adonis Stevenson.

From the way Ward’s talking, he’s not hanging around too much longer before he retires. If he does stay on, he’s going to need to possibly fight Artur Beterbiev, a fighter with superb inside fighting skills and huge power. Ward’s once great boxing skills seem to have withered away to the point where all he has left is his old grappling skills on the inside.

That’s strategy that Ward used against Kovalev, and he had a referee that didn’t get in the way of the wrestling. If Ward has to fight Beterbiev, he’s going to find out quickly that he can’t beat him with wresting, because he’s too strong and too powerful on the inside. It will likely end badly for Ward if he doesn’t retire and he chooses to fight Beterbiev.

Of course, Beterbiev still has to get past Sullivan Barrera first in their IBF 175lb eliminator match.

“I don’t know, man. This is a crossroads for my career right now from a decision-making standpoint,” said Ward via fighthype.com. “I still have the passion and the desire. I don’t want anyone to mistake my possible retirement with that, but I got to put it on the table and say what makes sense. I don’t care what people say. ‘Oh, you’re running from Kovalev.’ Really? I’ve been boxing. ‘ He’s scared.’ Really? I’ve been doing this my whole life. I’m not going to start being scared in year 22. So that’s not going to factor into my decision. My lawyer, he’s grinding. He’s working with whoever it is he’s got to talk to for him to get the deal done to see if this deal can be done. At that time, he’ll present it and I’ll make a sound decision, but there’s nothing else to accomplish. Maybe just make all these haters stop talking once again, but are you ever going to shut-up the haters completely? That’s always going to be there. That would probably be my only motivation to run it back one more time and kind of put my stamp on it. You know this wasn’t a fluke. That’s probably it,” said Ward.

There are a lot of fans that are critical of Ward not because they’re “haters” of him. The fans are critical of Ward because they felt that he should have lost the fight. They didn’t see him doing nearly enough to deserve the win. The fans likely would have been on Ward’s side if he fought well enough to rate the decision.

The fans just didn’t see it that way. That’s the way fans are. If they feel that a fighter was given a decision win that they didn’t deserve, they’re going to say something about it. The boxing fans don’t like when a fighter that is given a controversial decision fails to admit that he didn’t deserve the decision. If Ward just admitted that he should have lost the fight, I think his so-called “haters” wouldn’t jump on his case nearly as much as they’ve been doing.

It sounds like Ward will retire if he doesn’t get the deal that he wants in the Kovalev rematch. Is that a ploy on Ward’s part for him to try and get a bigger slice of the pie than what was previously written in the rematch clause in the contract? Why would Kovalev want to redo the contract if it was favorable to him? It seems to me that Ward will be the one that will be the one that loses if he chooses to retire rather than fighting Kovalev a second time.

Look at it this way. If Ward fights Kovalev a second time, he can prove to his many doubters that his win over Kovalev from last November was the real thing and not just a case of the judges giving him a gift decision. It’s in Ward’s best interest to fight Kovalev a second time, because he can show the boxing fans that he deserved the win over him the first time.
A lot of boxing fans see Ward as scared of Kovalev. What else are they going to think with Ward talking retirement rather than readily agreeing to get inside the ring to fight Kovalev a second time? The fans already think Ward was given a gift decision over Kovalev.

If Ward is going to prove to the boxing world that the win was a fluke thing, then he should step up and agree to the rematch. There was a rematch clause in their contract with the particulars such as purse split already included, according to Kovalev’s promoter. There wouldn’t be much negotiations between the two fighters because the split has already been decided. Ward just needs to step up so that he can prove that his previous controversial decision wasn’t a fluke thing.

If Ward really wants to prove the doubters wrong, he’ll agree to the rematch with Kovalev, and he’ll stand and fight him rather than choosing to wrestle him like he did in their previous fight. Ward should show the fans that he’s got he boxing ability and the talent to beat Kovalev in a war for 12 rounds rather than turning the fight into a wrestling match.

Kovalev was getting the better of Ward in the actual fighting in their November 19 fight. When Ward turned the fight into a wrestling match, he basically just stalled out the fight in every round and didn’t allow Kovalev to throw punches. It was a really ugly fight to watch for a lot of boxing fans because there was so little action. Every round was essentially the same with Ward grabbing Kovalev and grappling with him for three minutes of each round.