Hunter wants Groves, Froch, DeGale or Kessler for Andre Ward

By Boxing News - 01/22/2014 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Virgil Hunter, the trainer for WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (27-0, 14 KO’s), is hoping that one of the following fighters will agree to fight Ward in 2014: Carl Froch, George Groves, James DeGale, and Mikkel Kessler. Hunter has a ton of respect for Groves, and he was really impressed with the job that he did on Froch last November. However, Hunter doesn’t see any of these warriors calling out Ward for a fight for some reason, so Ward will likely have to go in another direction for his next fight in May.

“Nobody at 168 wants to fight him [Ward],” Hunter said to Radio Raheem. “The guy is No.2 on the pound-for-pound list, but no one wants to fight him. You have people like George Groves, who earned his position in the rankings; you have the rematches with Carl Froch; you have Mikkel Kessler; you have George Groves, who just put on a magnificent performance against Carl Froch; you have a gold medalist James DeGale coming up. So far nobody has called him out. He’s fighting in May.”

Hunter might as well be mentioning Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a fight with Ward, because he has about as good a chance to fight Mayweather as he does any of those other guys. Froch clearly doesn’t want the fight with Ward, and I haven’t heard a peep out of Kessler and DeGale about them wanting to fight Ward, even though he holds a major title and it would be worth it for them to fight him.

Getting Froch, DeGale, Groves, and Kessler to agree to a fight against Ward is probably not humanely possible. Those guys just don’t seem eager to fight the talented Ward. I guess he’s just too good and they don’t want losses on their resumes beyond the ones that they already have.

With Froch, DeGale, Groves and Kessler showing no interest in fighting him, Ward will need to fight one of the simple contenders in the division for his next fight. Maybe Ward can fight Dimitri Sartison or Stanyslav Kastantov next. Either one of those opponents would make for a nice stay busy fight for Ward.



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