Virgil Hunter: Andre Ward is not a light-heavyweight, he’s still a super-middleweight – GGG fight a possibility

03/27/201703/27/2017 James Slater

Ask any fight fan, and they will tell you that unbeaten pound-for-pound king (according to “The Bible,” Ring Magazine) Andre Ward has unfinished business with Sergey Kovalev, the man he so controversially dethroned to become 175 pound champ last November. Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter agrees, saying the exact same thing to TownBizzNizz Sports & Media.

Hunter, though, adds how his fighter is “not a light-heavyweight, he is still a super-middleweight.” The anticipated rematch with Kovalev is expected to happen this summer, but Hunter says that after Ward has “finished with Kovalev” his star boxer may move down to 168 for a huge fight with Gennady Golovkin. Hunter says Ward would have no problem doing this.

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Ward-Kovalev II: Sergey Kovalev says he’s “still waiting on Son of Judges” to sign for June 17 rematch

03/24/2017 James Slater

It’s one of the most eagerly awaited, even demanded, rematches in recent memory; it’s Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev II, and almost as soon as the decision, in favour of Ward, was announced last November, fans called for it. According to a piece on RingTV.com, the date for the return meeting is June 17, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, but Ward, as of yet, has not signed on the dotted line.

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Roman Gonzalez replaced atop of Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound list, by .. Andre Ward

03/22/201703/22/2017 James Slater

Superb little fighting machine Roman Gonzalez, a warrior who sat atop of Ring Magazine’s respected pound-for-pound list since September of 2015, has been demoted. The result of his thrilling but losing battle with Thai southpaw Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (a tough name to pronounce, but one we should all get used to as the new WBC super-flyweight king promises to stick around the big fight orbit for some time), the Nicaraguan has slipped to No.4 in the mythical rankings.

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Sergey Kovalev insults Andre Ward in rematch call-out: “Are you a man or a girl!”

03/18/201703/18/2017 James Slater

Sergey Kovalev “Andre Ward, He’s another piece of sh*t in my eyes! He’s not real man!”

All the big boxing names are currently gathered in New York, primarily for tonight’s world middleweight title clash between punchers Gennady Golovkin and Danny Jacobs. Included is one of the biggest hitters on the planet pound-for-pound, light-heavyweight “Krusher” Sergey Kovalev.

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Andre Ward says he smiles at Chris Eubank Junior’s claim he would “wreck” him

02/03/2017 James Slater

Chris Eubank Junior, along with his ever-present father, has been very vocal in the lead-up to tomorrow’s fight that will see him attempt to take the IBO super-middleweight bauble from huge 25-1 outsider Renold Quinlan. But Eubank has been verbally attacking just about any fighter you could care to mention apart from Australia’s Quinlan.

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Froch says Ward adopts illegal ring tactics: “It’s difficult for me to give him any credit”

01/27/2017 James Slater

Throughout his great, Hall of Fame-worthy ring career, Carl Froch met just one man he could not defeat: Andre Ward. Meeting in the long awaited final to “The Super Six” super-middleweight tournament back in December of 2011, Ward and Froch battled for 12 less than thrilling rounds with Ward winning via clear decision.

One may feel the reason Froch – in speaking with FightHype.com – is so unkind to Ward is the defeat. But “The Cobra,” who works as a pundit for Sky Sports these days, insists he finds it “difficult” giving praise and credit to the unbeaten Ward even though he was defeated by him. Froch says Ward is “ugly” in fights and uses illegal tactics.

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Who makes it into the top 10 pound-for-pound boxers of 2016?

12/28/2016 Jazz Singh Gill

Much disputed, debated and demeaned too, boxing’s pound-for-pound list remains the definitive way to single out the best boxers in the world.

Making the selection for 2016 requires serious deliberation, as changes must be made. 2016 is only the second year in approximately 11 years of boxing that Floyd Mayweather is not at the top of boxing’s pound-for-pound list.

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Andre Ward says Team-GGG didn’t want to fight until 2018, so he moved up to 175

11/28/2016 James Slater

According to Andre Ward, we fans could have, indeed, would have, seen a super-fight between he and middleweight king Gennady Golovkin this year had Team-GGG been willing to take the 50-50 fight that was offered to them. Speaking with TMZ Sports, Ward, now the unified light-heavyweight champion, said Golovkin was not willing to fight him until 2018, so he made the decision to move up in weight and challenge Sergey Kovalev.

“I think the fight with Golovkin should have happened before the Kovalev fight,” Ward said. “That fight was talked about, our teams had some correspondence, and it just didn’t work out. I’m not here to expose them or throw them under the bus or nothin’ like that. But I will be honest with the fans because there is a lot of confusion out there. They didn’t want the fight. They flipped it and said we were ducking and dodging. If you read the e-mail [of an offer for the fight] it was clear – we gave them a 50-50 split so there wouldn’t be any arguments.”

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Fights we want to see in 2017

11/27/201611/26/2016 James Slater

2016’s boxing year was okay, if not great. We saw some excellent fights – see Keith Thurman-Shawn Porter, Orlando Salido-Francisco Vargas, Jamie Conlan-Anthony Nelson – and there is still a little over a month to go before the end of the year. But some experts, Oscar De La Hoya for example, has not been happy with how the sport played out this year, even calling 2016 “one of the worst years in boxing history.”

Those fans who agree that 2016 was a disappointment can look ahead to a potentially great 2017 for the sport. Already we have confirmed fights to get excited about, including Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia, David Haye-Tony Bellew and more, and also a strongly pencilled in Wladimir Klitschko-Anthony Joshua fight. And with the continued rise of future stars such as Vasyl Lomachenko, Artur Beterbiev, Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk and others set to feature in further big fights, 2017 could really be a big fistic year.

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Kostya Tszyu on Kovalev: ”He needs to discover what went wrong in himself, and not look for errors in the judges’ scores.”

11/23/2016 Vitali Shaposhnikov

Considered to be one of the best super lightweights in recent history, Kostya Tszyu (31-2-0) rarely makes himself available to comment on, or be interviewed for anything boxing related. But when he does pick up the microphone, it is not difficult to remember him as being one of the more outspoken, smart, and most importantly honest people in boxing.

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