Andre Ward considers heavyweight fight if ‘right situation’

Newly crowned light heavyweight titlist Andre Ward says he’ll consider a move up to heavyweight before his career is over, but insists that he won’t let his ego get him into a ridiculous size mismatch. He says it would have to be the right situation but emphatically says it wouldn’t be against neither Deontay Wilder nor Anthony Joshua who are just much, much bigger than he is.

“There’s certain guys you don’t mess with and those guys are too big,” Ward said. “I respect them, but you got to find the right opponent and the right situation. So maybe one day, maybe not, but not those two.”

Ward would rather follow in the footsteps of Roy Jones Jr. who moved up to heavyweight for a title fight against John Ruiz. Ruiz, who was good enough to capture a world title, was never amazingly gifted which made it an appropriate move for Jones Jr.

“Listen, I’ve talked about this a lot and I know it sounds crazy. I know it does,” Ward said. “But I feel like I have a Roy Jones-type of situation in me before my career is over. And I have a great guy to do it with, Mackie Shilstone, but it’s got to be the right guy. I’m not going to let my ego get in the way.”

It should be noted that Mackie Shilstone, the strength and conditioning coach that prepared Ward for the Sergey Kovalev fight, is also the same man who worked with Jones Jr. to make his successful move to heavyweight.

But by pretty much all accounts, Ward’s immediate future is at light heavyweight. Sergey Kovalev and his promoter Kathy Duva have insisted that they have an immediate rematch clause with Ward and will look to exercise that option straight away. Therefore it’s looking like we’ll see a Ward-Kovalev sequel in the near future.