Andre ward a hypocrite SHOULD fight kovalev

Andre Ward, 2012.

"I am ready to fight the best 168- and 175-pounders that are out there," Ward told ESPN.com in a recent interview. "At this point, a big fight at 175 is interesting to me. I don't want to go up just to go up. But for the right fight, for a big fight, I would go up. I'm willing to fight anyone at '68 or '75."

And again

“People ask me on the street or on Twitter when I'm coming back,” said Ward, who is expecting his fourth child with wife Tiffiney in mid-June. “Well, I'm coming. I want Bute but I'm ready for any big fight at 168 or 175 pounds.”

Andre Ward, 2011

On Saturday night in Carson, California, WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KOs) dominated Arthur Abraham (32-3, 26 KOs) to advance to the finals of the Super Six Boxing Classic. He waits for the winner of the upcoming Super Six semi-final bout between Carl Froch with Glen Johnson, scheduled for June 4 in Atlantic City. Beyond the Super Six, Ward would like to face undefeated IBF champion Lucian Bute of Canada, and eventually would consider a move in weight to capture a second divisional title at light heavyweight.

"After the tournament, I want to face Lucian Bute. Nobody else comes to mind. However, I do not intend to underestimate any opponent, and first I need to focus on winning the tournament. If I win the tournament and beat Bute, it would be everything that I could achieve [at this weight]. Therefore, in the future I do intend to move up. I want to win titles and face the best. The tournament, organized by Showtime, gave me the opportunity to fight the best fighters in my category, and after its completion there won't be anything for me at this weight,"

--Andre Ward

 

“The big fights are at 168, and the reality is that those guys don’t want to fight me,” Ward said. “And there’s a slew of excuses on why, but that’s the reality.

---Andre Ward

“There’s no one at light-heavyweight right now apart Sergey Kovalev and Bernard Hopkins. The super-middleweight division is much deeper than the light-heavyweights, so why would he move up? He won’t.”

---Virgil Hunter, September, 2014

What about Stevenson? Surely they can't have forgotten about him? He's the lineal champion at 175 and the holder of the prestigious and coveted WBC belt. You know, the guy who issued a direct call out to Ward live on HBO after he'd just obliterated Chad Dawson in 76 seconds in what Max Kellerman described as a ''star making performance'' and who offered to drop back down to 168 and go to Ward's hometown (a place where Ward is allowed by his Californian refs to fight to a set of rules he penned with his own hand) for the first of a two fight deal, the second being in Canada at 175.

Ward's response:

''Stevenson doesn’t have the track record to warrant a title fight. He won’t get a shot until he has won some big fights.”

What on earth is Ward talking about here? What absolute nonsense. Stevenson is the lineal LHW champion and is far more worthy than many of the opponents Ward is absolutely desperate to fight or has tried to arrange fights against.

Why does Ward keep dismissing some of the most worthy challengers out there for him (reigning world champions in his own division and linear ones a division North of it) as ''unworthy'' and insist that they have to ''win more big fights'' or fight ''one or two A class opponents'' before they get their shot at him'', but ''MW hype jobs'' who by his own admission were only the ''number 2 or 3 in their division'' are fully deserving of their crack at him?

Why were Dmitri Sartison, MW Caleb Truax, Stanyslav Kashtanov, shot drunk Pavlik, Edwin Rodriguez, Brian Vera's son Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and MW hype job Golovkin all worthy opponents for Ward but linear LHW champ Adonis Stevenson (who was fresh off a spectacular ''star making performance'' one punch KO of Chad Dawson and had called him out during his post-fight interview live on HBO whilst Ward was in the arena doing the commentary for the fight) and IBF SMW champ Lucian Bute (who Ward said was the only fight out there for the winner of the Super Six and who headed over to the US with the intention of trying to secure a fight against him in Oakland and take a huge pay cut to do it) were not?

Hunter says 168 is far deeper than 175 but he said everyone's ducking Ward at that weight and that ''there are no willing challengers''

Froch is ''ducking him'' and has one foot in the retirement door.

Kessler is shot

"In truth we finished Kessler [in 2009] and Andre was just a puppy back then [20-0]. [Froch] still hasn't beat anybody. We finished Kessler and took the life out of him. Think about who [Kessler] fought since that time. [Besides] Froch, he hasn't had what it takes to fight anybody of any caliber, because finished him. The thing about that [rematch last Saturday], Kessler's body language made it seem like there was more happening than there really was, because he's a shot fighter. His balance is shot and his body language made [every landed punch] look worse than it was. And he still hurt Froch two or three times in that fight,"

--Virgil Hunter

''George Groves doesn't want to fight me''

---Andre Ward

''Golovkin is ducking me''

--Andre Ward

''Chavez Jr. is a ''weak link'' and is ducking me''

--Andre Ward

Chavez Jr. was only a ''weak link'' when Froch wanted him but when Andre wants a piece of him it's a completely different story:

''Chavez Jr is not an easy fight. A lot of people say [it's easy] but that's not an easy fight. He's a big kid, he's a strong kid and he can punch."

'Chavez has got skills. I see a lot of his father in him'' lol

But Chavez isn't even a ''real challenge for Froch, a man Ward beat easily with a broken hand.'' lol

'Ward said that he doesn't blame Froch for looking for a less threatening challenge.

"Froch is 36-years-old or 37 or whatever he is, he's trying to cash out. He doesn't want a real challenge (he's alluding to Froch wanting Chavez here) like [George] Groves or even myself. And that's fine, but don't bring my name up as much as you do and act like you want to fight when really you don't. Be honest with the fans,"

Ward won't fight Anthony Dirrell because he's a ''brother''

'Let's start with Ward's next fight. The June 2 date in Oakland should work, but it won't be against Bute, who faces Carl Froch on May 26. Nor will it be against Anthony Dirrell, it would seem. Dirrell, the brother of the more famous Andre Dirrell, is Ward's WBC mandatory. But Ward says he's not interested in that fight and would just vacate his belt, even though he called it "a good matchup." He claims that the TV networks won't be interested, which seems bizarre given that Showtime televised Dirrell's eliminator win over Renan St-Juste in
December.'

"That's a good matchup," Ward told SI's Chris Mannix when asked about facing Dirrell. "But to be perfectly honest with you I don't have a lot of interest. I consider Anthony a good fighter, a brother. But the networks won't be interested."

We all know the history regarding Anthony's bro Andre and Ward (who I've heard Ward is even closer friends with than Anthony) not wanting to fight each other and I haven't heard either Andre or Ward beating down the door to face each other since.

So who is there out there for Ward to fight in the ''much deeper'' SMW division? A way past his best Arthur Abraham whom he's already beaten and who was never much cop up at 168 as it was and has struggled against almost every decent and half decent opponent he's faced up there, and even against some complete non entities. Abraham is barely above Paul Smith level at the moment. lol

So who is there out there for Ward at 168 who even comes close in magnitude to a fight against Kovalev or Stevenson?

Kovalev is ''not a pay-per-view fight, and then if I fight him and beat him, then what?”

--Andre Ward

“They’re being pushed as the Boogey Men in their divisions. Golvokin’s in the middleweight division, and Stevenson and Kovalev in the light heavyweight division,” said Ward, who is THE RING’s No. 2-rated fighter, pound-for-pound, behind RING 147- and 154-pound champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“I don’t see a win over either one of those guys right now catapulting me past the Floyd Mayweathers or something like that.''

But the opponents down at 168 will? lol

 

Ward's ''ducking'' of Adonis Stevenson is far more of a duck than Golovkin's supposed ''ducking'' of him. Ward's refusing to fight some of his most worthy rivals (reigning world and lineal champions on the grounds that they're ''unworthy'' even though they jumped at the chance to go to his hometown for a fight against him, like I said, a place where Ward (who is a dirty fighter) is allowed to fight to his own set of rules. Would Ward fight Golovkin (who is a very clean fighter who always uses legal tactics to defeat his opponents) over in Kazakhstan or Germany (Gennady's adopted home) where everything is in his opponent's favour, with a Kazakh or German referee who won't let him play dirty and will punish him if he does? Well that's what Ward expects Golovkin to do for him.

Aside from Ward wanting Golovkin to fight him in his own country with an American referee, he also wants him to move up in weight even though Golovkin has plenty left to achieve at 160 and Ward still refuses to move up to 175 despite the fact that he has pretty much cleaned out his division and said there would be nothing left for him to achieve in it after the Super Six. Ward would never agree to make the kind of concessions he expects Golovkin to make for him. And don't forget that Golovkin has had to make sacrifices Ward can only dream of to forge a career for himself. He's had to uproot and leave his homeland and family behind, learn two new languages and adapt to completely new or alien cultures etc and he's had to travel all all over the world to fight: Germany 18 times. Denmark and the Ukraine once a piece. Monaco twice. Panama twice. America 6 times. And he's even fought in his homeland Kazakhstan once too lol.