Andre Ward won’t be missed by the sport says Froch

BoxingNews24.com

By Allan Fox: Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) will not be missed by the sport of boxing after he retires, according to former 168lb champion Carl Froch. He saw Ward’s recent victory over Sergey Kovalev, and he feels that the fight should have been scored a draw. Ward won by a 12 round unanimous decision by the identical scores of 114-113 x 3. Kovalev fought well enough to deserve the win in the eyes of a lot of the fans and the media, but Ward was the one that had his hand raised after the fight.

It’s now unclear whether Ward will fight Kovalev in a rematch. With the money on the line for the rematch, it’s difficult to imagine Ward retiring without fighting Kovalev at least once more.

The thing is it could be difficult for their promoters to negotiation the rematch, because Ward is sounding like he wants the bigger cut. Just how much bigger is the big question.
Froch doesn’t like the way that Ward holds, wrestles, and ducks below the waist to avoid punches. Froch sees the ducking below the waist as being illegal stuff that should result in Ward being penalized.

Froch said to esnewsreporting.com:

“What Ward does is like borderline cheating,” said Froch. “He ducks below the waist, he holds, he head-butts, and he grapples. It’s not nice to watch. It’s not nice to watch. It’s not fair. I’ve boxed him myself. He gets close to you. He ties you up. He nullifies you. When you try to hit him, he ducks below the waist. You’re not supposed to duck below the waist. That’s illegal. There’s an argument that he should have a point deduction, but he gets away with it. I think Kovalev didn’t deserve to lose. Maybe they should have scored it a draw. The sport isn’t going to miss him. He should come back to Nottingham and fight me. We invited him, but he won’t come,” said Froch about Ward.

Ward retiring off of his controversial win over Kovalev isn’t likely. I don’t think Ward wants to go out like that. It would be a bad way to end his boxing career, especially with all the money that he could get in a rematch. If Ward retires without fighting Kovalev a second time, a lot of boxing fans will think that he’s scared of fighting the Russian fighter a second time.

Ward beat Froch by a 12 round decision in 2011 in the Super Six tournament. A rematch between them would seem all but impossible if Froch insists on fighting in his home city of Nottingham, England. Ward isn’t going to want to put himself at a potential disadvantage by fighting in Froch’s home city.