Andre Ward " I am not gonna chase these guys"

most of the time having a US rep gets the big fights
look at the graveyard of Europeans who didn't fight roy jones, and now look at what kind of effort they made to get established in the US

its not about beating chests, its common sense
soccer players go to Europe to make their name

 

It also comes down to the number of events that take place in a certain location/country. It's rather simple, the more active a certain place you go to the higher the chances to bump into idiots or assholes regardless of how well its managed. However, when a certain place is hardly active yet you occasionally run into idiots then you know there's a problem with the people managing the place.

I don't need to have the exact number because it's obvious. Almost all of the major events take place in America. There's a reason foreign fighters have America in plan for the future. It has more to do with common sense than accurate numbers. I already listed the names of British only fighters that made it to America. If I start naming other fighters from other countries this would take forever.

As far as I remember, Froch openly stated that Ward is no one to make any demands considering his lack of public interest which obviously falls on to his terrible management and promotion. If that's not a direct sign that Froch is pretty much making it clear that he will be calling all shots if a rematch happens then I don't know what is. Again, it has more to do with common sense. To be fair, Froch earned his position by hiring the right people to manage and promote him. Ward obviously didn't which is why he's the winner of the first fight but is being treated as the loser.

 

word

 

:good

:good
yup...excuses.....

he don't want to face 80k Brits screaming Son Of ***** all fight long..... Bute realized in the ring walk he was in for it.
Ward saw the man he was deathly afraid of get deer in the headlighted and don't wanna risk a similar fate.

 

bollocks, froch earnt his position by fighting often against the best available, a lesson ward sorely needs to learn (or, as others have mentioned, shut it).

 

The point you are missing, is that regardless of if your assessment of the ratio of robberies overall is true or not (and while I agree UK has lots of funny business, possibly more than US the amount of funny business in the US is still very significant) - each fight is a unique event. Whether an individual fight becomes a robbery comes down to the officials at that particular event.

Also, plenty of fighters choose to make their careers in UK or Germany or Mexico. The US is a good market.. but the fact is after Floyd and Manny, the next several top fighters in regards to pay are mostly fighting elsewhere. The Euro fighters make good money.

If Ward tried to negotiate a fight, he would at least get credit for that. Noone would blame him if he declined to sign due to not getting neutral officials. The egg would then be on Froch's face not Wards, for blatantly trying for home cooking. I dont think Froch would try and pull that, he is too proud. When Froch talks about demands, he is likely just primarily referring to venue and purse split. Because yeah, for the fight to take place it will have to be where he wants it at the purse split he feels happy with.

 

I wrote an article about this on my own website a couple of months ago. The real problem is that the other belt holders can make the same, if not more, money fighting each other and freezing Ward out. He is such a high risk - low reward opponent he has really painted himself into a corner, career-wise...

http://www.onepunchko.com/2014/01/the-andre-ward-dilemma-too-talented-for.html?m=1

 

The main point here and that I forgot to mention is that " I am not gonna chase these guys". It's almost like a self-refusal to play along and to find new challenges to overcome your own achievements Chad Dawson after beating Glenn, Antonio, Hopkins, he turned and he said I want to fight a guy who is in tip-top shape and is on top of his game such as Andre and I am willing to go down in weight despite my size. Andre, in short contrast, is not willing to even welcome anybody to his domain to fight him if it doesn't make sense finantially and I believe he desperately needs to find a dancing partner to attract a lot of viewers such as Gennady Golovkin at 168, Sergey Kovalev at 175, JCC Jr either at 168 or at a catchweight 168-175. Somebody said in tasteless humour that he needs to retire but a guy can't stay that long off the game, this is typical Bernard Hopkins, he is inpersonating Bernard.

 

I don't know, if Andre Ward had not just gone on ESPN claiming Goosen was killing good fights, maybe he would have a point.

As is, all this talk just seems like damage control after the law suit.

"Uh, all that stuff I said about Goosen killing fights...uh, forget it, these guys just don't want to fight me. They want me to chase them."

Probably not a good idea to dismiss so many willing opponents either or take a year off because your wife is pregnant.

Eventually the Champion can become largely irrelevant, as the case with Foreman in the late 90s as Holyfield and Lewis established themselves as the real top guys without him.

 

I wouldn't call it futile; but it is demanding and requires more political action than the average boxer wants to put forward to accomplish it. You don't get the same level of freedom to choose your opposition, and if you don't play ball the right way, some org's will strip you anyways.

I agree that it would be healthier if such an emphasis weren't placed on belts, but unification is usually required in order to fight the best competition anyways since the weaker beltholders are essentially top contenders to the best champion.

It's a messed up situation, and personally, I wouldn't complain if the entire ABC belt system was blown up and they hit the reset button on it.....but that's the environment fighters and their promoters have to navigate through. One guy collecting all the belts is the next best thing to having the old system of "one belt, one champ" for each division.

 

:yep

 

Boxed Ears do you go to see all of Wards fights?, will you continue to even if its against people you have barely heard of. And finally are you happy if he never fights a top fighter again?. I ask because the way you sound is like a very loyal fan who does not actually care for the fights only Andre Wards earned rights.
Infact out of curiosity how many here actually do go see all of Wards fights or atleast the majority?

 

The biggest thing is that someone needs to explain to whoever's calling the shots in Andre's career that there's a difference between "chasing someone" and helping to market a fight. You've got to at least play along enough to help sell a fight (or build one) even if you're as jaded about your career as a 50 year old grizzled homicide detective.

 

The problem is tho Ward has 2 choices do whats right for his principles or do whats right for his career. In this instance he cant do both (At least not at this moment). Eventually only the diehard fans of him and his style will turn up to his fights unless he fights a big name and if that continues he will fade away and the vast majority will begind to pick apart his resume and question his career.