By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) says retirement is an option for him if his negotiations for a rematch against former undisputed 175lb champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) fail to workout. Ward, 32, says he wants the second fight with Kovalev, and that he’ll try and get the fight negotiated, but if it doesn’t make business sense, then he might retire.
Whether that would be a permanent retirement or not is unclear. Ward and Kovalev had a rematch clause in the contract for their previous fight last month on November 19, which Ward won by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ward isn’t saying what kind of purse split he and his promoters at Roc Nation Sports are looking for in a second fight against Kovalev. Ward has stressed recently that Kovalev and his promoter Kathy Duva are no longer the A-side in the rematch now that they lost the last time.
If Ward is talking retirement now if the negotiations with Kovalev don’t work out, then you have to wonder what whether he’s all that excited about continuing his career for much longer even if he does face him a second time and win. It’s not as if Kovalev is the last threat to Ward’s perfect record. There’s a fighter named Artur Beterbiev that is ranked #2 IBF, #3 WBA, #3 WBC, and #3 WBO.
Ward would need to fight Beterbiev very soon if he gets past Kovalev a second time. Beterbiev is a fighter with a great inside game that is arguably superior to Ward. Since a big part of Ward’s game at this point in his career is clinching and fighting on the inside, he would have a lot of problems in that department against Beterbiev. If you look at Ward’s fight against Kovalev last month, the best thing that Ward had going for him was his inside wrestling, holding and short punches.
Beterbiev is very strong on the inside and capable of knocking guys out with short rapid punches to the head and body thrown in close. You can’t wrestle Beterbiev, because he’s too strong. Ward would have to fight Beterbiev at some point in the near future if he wanted to hold onto his titles. Ward couldn’t just give up one title to avoid the Beterbiev fight, because he’s ranked highly in all three of the organizations that he’s holding titles for. The only way Ward could avoid the Beterbiev fight is by vacating all of his titles or retiring.
Ward said this to Fighthype.com about a second fight with Kovalev:
“The rematch with Kovalev is definitely something I’m interested in, it’s definitely something we’re entertaining, but I’m the champion now,” said Ward. “If it’s not right and it doesn’t make sense, you know, absolutely, that may be a sign that it’s time to leave the sport and walk away and do some other things in my life. “I have to be fair to myself. I’ve put in a lot of hours, a lot of time, not just in these fights, but in this gym, my whole life, so it would be unfair to me to get into a ring at any point in time in my career moving forward if I’m not happy with the terms.”
Ward talking about retiring if the negotiations make sense is disappointing, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do that. Ward is just talking right now. We’ll see if he’s willing to give up all those titles rather than sticking it out in a second fight, which he could very lose. Ward could have lost the last fight with a different set of judges. The scoring was subjective. Many in the media saw Kovalev winning the fight. Some of the HBO people had Kovalev winning. I had Kovalev winning. The three judges that worked that particular fight scored it for Ward by the scores 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113. They very, very close scores, and it could have gone against him.
If Ward’s No.1 game plan for the rematch against Kovalev is to take it to the inside and wrestle, smother and hold for 12 rounds, then that’s a fight that could lose. You’re talking about a game of inches when you take the fight out of the boxing realm and turn it into a wrestling match. If Kovalev improves on that part of his game to deal with Ward’s grappling, then it could be bad news for Ward. At the same time, if Kovalev is able to continue to get the better of Ward when there’s separation between the two fighters, then Ward will probably lose the rematch. I don’t think Ward can improve his outside game, because he clearly wasn’t as good as Kovalev when they were actually fighting. The one thing that Ward had in his favor was the smothering and wrestling that he was doing in the fight. If that’s going to be Ward’s Plan-A for the rematch with Kovalev, then he could lose to him.
With the way that Ward fought Kovalev, he doesn’t look like he’s good enough to remain a champion for long. Ward doesn’t have the movement, hand speed, power, youth or the punch volume to remain a champion for a long time at 175. If Ward is able to smother Kovalev for 12 rounds and get away with it without being penalized by the referee working the fight, then he might win the rematch. But that fighting style is right up the alley of Artur Beterbiev.
If Ward uses that style against Beterbiev, he’s going to get torn apart and likely knocked out. Beterbiev is just way too good on the inside for Ward to have success with his smothering and wrestling. Ward doesn’t have the youth to beat Beterbiev by staying on the outside and matching him punch for punch. Ward would slide to the inside to try and stop Beterbiev from punching, and once he does that, he’s going to get hammered with repeated shots to the head. I think the fight would end up being a massacre. At this point in Ward’s career, I think he absolutely has to wrestle the top quality fighters for him to win, and he won’t be able to do that against Beterbiev. It’s debatable whether Ward can beat Kovalev a second time using that style, because it didn’t work in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans and members of the media the first time. It was just the scoring of the three judges that worked the fight.
I don’t know what kind of purse split Ward wants for the rematch against Kovalev. It would be in Ward’s best interest to make sure it’s a fair one. After all, without Kovalev, Ward wouldn’t have a big name to fight unless his management can somehow get a match against Adonis Stevenson. That’s a bad match-up for Ward. Stevenson can punch and he’s fast. I don’t know how good of a wrestler he is, but he’s a real good puncher. Ward can always fight guys like Jean Pascal, but he was recently beaten twice by Kovalev.
I don’t know how much interest there would be in a Pascal vs. Ward fight. Pascal is kind of dangerous too. He can punch, and he has faster hands than Ward. He’s a better fighter offensively than Ward. There’s not a lot of options for Ward in the 175lb division once you get past Kovalev, Stevenson and Pascal. Those are the main guys, and all of them are long in the tooth.
Retirement for Ward has to be seen as the equivalent of him pushing the red nuclear button on his career. I don’t know if this is a negotiating strategy on Ward’s part in mentioning retirement as an option or what. It’s interesting that he’s bringing it up before the negotiations have even started.