Andre Ward, undefeated at 33, retired after studying Roy Jones Jr.’s career—avoiding weight-cutting struggles like Tarver fights and Hopkins’ disciplined late-career dominance. His torn subscapularis (surgery in 2013) and ACL/meniscus injuries forced brutal rehab, yet he thrived under trainer Virgil Hunter’s safety-first approach, dismissing critics who questioned his resilience, including Kovalev’s "robbed" claims. Now retired with financial security, Ward warns against fighters overstaying their prime, like Jones or Leonard, and criticizes UFC’s rushed matchups, advocating smarter scheduling for longevity. His disciplined exit—backed by faith, family, and pastors—sets a blueprint for prioritizing health over hype in combat sports. [Automatically generated summary]
I mean, it sounds all neat and buttoned up, but it wasn't that easy.
Like, I didn't know how things were going to go throughout the course of my career.
But for whatever reason, like, I always, even as a young kid, I'm talking 10 years old, like, I had this thought, like, you know, I don't want to end up like a lot of fighters end up.
Like, they seem to go high, really high, and then all of a sudden they come crashing down.
Like, they start well, but they don't end well.
That's what drew me to Roy Jones Jr. Country boy, had swag, and he'd always talk about himself in the third person.
He'd be like, man, you know, Roy Jones, I don't love a sport like that, man.
I'm going to get in and get out.
I'm just special at it, and I'm going to be fishing on my farm one day in Pensacola, Florida.
I was like, man, this dude is different.
Fighters don't talk like that.
So he was the first one that gave me the thought of getting in and getting out.
And then again, I just studied it throughout the course of my career.
Even other athletes and entertainers, I was enamored by it.
So That was always a goal.
Just as much as I wanted to win a gold medal, world championship, I wanted to leave on top when people were asking, why are you leaving?
There's a lot of different reasons why people do that, man.
I just didn't want to be one of them, simply put.
But the retirement is coming up on two years, September 21st.
It's harder than I thought it was going to be.
One of the most hardest things I've ever had to do, but one of the most rewarding.
And the way I reconcile it in my brain is that, okay...
At some point, I'm going to have to do this.
At some point, I'm going to have to face the emotions and the pull to come back and, you know, trying to figure out if your body can still do it and just all the different things you go through, whether I'm in my prime or whether I'm 40, 45 years old.
I got a chance to see Tito fight live in Vegas once.
It was amazing.
But when Bernard started putting it on him, I was like, wow, this is, first of all, this is like a legitimate middleweight fighting guy who's really a welterweight.
And this is also a really special fighter who just figures people out.
He fought Tito in New York City, in Madison Square Garden, which is little Puerto Rico.
Yes.
I think it was the week of the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Yes.
And previously to that fight in Puerto Rico, Bernard Hopkins took the Puerto Rican flag, threw it down, caused a melee, had to run out of there, get snatched out of the arena, wherever they were having a press conference, get thrown on the plane.
You know, it's interesting when you watch his style as well, that very technical, very disciplined style versus Roy's style, which was so athletic and explosive and very unusual with that lead left hook that he would fire off more than a jab.
I mean, Roy had a crazy style.
And then you watch Roy outpoint Bernard early, but then Bernard comes back later in his career and really kind of like shut Roy down and showed like when the athleticism starts to slip away a little bit, Roy is normal.
Yeah, whereas Bernard was still this incredibly disciplined, very well-schooled boxer.
It was a real good lesson for fighters to see the deal.
Like, this is why you use the fundamentals.
This is why you fight correctly.
You can get away with being Roy Jones Jr. But Roy Jones Jr., with his physical gifts, I feel like he could have got away with fighting discipline, too.
He could have gone and had a full career and rode off in the sunset and been in Pensacola fishing, hunting, doing whatever he does, and still not really been super fundamentally sound.
But, I mean, after he beat John Ruiz for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and I had been going to multiple Roy fights leading up to that heavyweight fight, Antonio Tarver, who I have a lot of respect for, you know, they were rivals in Florida when they were young.
Um...
Antonio was following Roy around, trying to get him to notice him, trying to get him to take a fight.
And I remember clear as day, in the post-fight press conference, after Roy became the heavyweight champion of the world, after being the middleweight champion, starting at 160, Antonio Tarver interrupted the press conference.
He said, Roy Jones, you've been ducking me, you've been running.
He's going on and on and on.
Roy looks at Tarver and gives him the attention that he's been after.
And he said, oh, he said, I I'm going to whoop you.
I'm going to whoop you.
We're going to make that fight happen.
And at that moment, I'm thinking like, no, Roy, no, don't do it.
You're the heavyweight champion of the world.
Tarver was still light heavyweight.
And sure enough.
Roy went down, stripped off 25 pounds of muscle that he had built up with Mackie Shieldstone to get ready for the heavyweight fight.
Went down there, fought a close fight, but he didn't look like himself.
Took the rematch.
Now, even after the first fight with Tarver, man, you run for the heels.
When you think about a career as a heavyweight fighter, too, and all the heavy blows that that guy took, whatever mental problems he might have had were certainly compounded.
You know, you had an amazing career, but one of the things that I think maybe people aren't as aware of, makes your career even more incredible, is that you fought for a long time with a bad shoulder.
Like, if you go back and watch the Carl Frotch fight, I watched that, getting ready for this, I watched it again, you boxed the shit out of him with mostly your left hand.
It had to be, but one of the things you were so good at, man, was, I don't have to tell you, you know this, was using your jab to shut down southpaw fighters, shut down their jab and counter.
You know, and you just had that, you had like extra juice with your left hand because you used it so much.
When you have one hand or one arm that functions really well, you learn to make that thing great.
You overcompensate, and that's what that left hand was, overcompensation because I didn't have the right hand to fall back on.
But the whole Southpaw thing, shout out to my boy Nick and Nate Diaz and all the work we've done in camp.
Those guys got me ready for a lot of my Southpaw opponents midway through and toward the end of my career.
A lot of work with those guys, and specifically Nate.
At a certain point, I stopped working with Nick because he was doing other things, but Nate, man, and the volume and having to deal with the awkwardness and the height and the reach, that got me ready for Chad Dawson.
I mean, Conor obviously was, you know, he was a little bit different and he brought what he brought to the table, but probably would have been a good thing to try to balance them both out, show love to Nate.
But, you know, he was like the rebel child.
You know, he'd say whatever came to his mind and, you know, the powers that be, they don't like that.
I think he was a little overshadowed by his brother, too, because, you know, when your brother's a superstar, there's something about, I mean, and especially, like, his brother, when he was fighting in Strikeforce, in particular, was one of the best fighters in the world.
He was just amazing.
And then, you know, especially, like, you know, during, like, his title reign, like, when he was at his peak when he was fighting in Strikeforce.
But for whatever reason, they just, you know, Nate just flew under the radar.
If you love combat sports, if you love fighting, if you love boxing, you enjoy it all.
I love the guy that has to take two to give one But I also love the master.
And I'll just speak for boxing.
The problem that we have is we've ostracized the master of the game.
Instead of articulating what we're seeing or trying to articulate what we're seeing and leaving it right there, let it be what it is and let the fans decide what they like and don't like.
We've tried to tell the fans what they should.
This is boring.
Hold on.
That's the guy that's going to be speaking properly when all is said and done.
This guy, hopefully he is too, but the likelihood is a lot less because you take giving two to give one.
But as soon as that guy gets knocked out, then all of a sudden everybody turns on him.
One thing he used to always tell me, and I never looked at it like that, he was like, son, my sole purpose, my main focus is to get you home safe to your family.
He said it's not for us to win championships.
It's not for you to be all everything.
It's to get you home to Tiffany and those kids safely.
And when he said that, it just put it all in perspective for me.
He's a competitor.
He wants to win, but not at the expense of my health.
And because he taught me the right way, we got the wins and the belts and everything anyway, and then I was also able to go home to my family.
I think one thing that my dad and Verge did really well for me and my brother Jonathan who box with me for many years They gave us mental reps.
Like I'd be driving in the car or riding in the car with Verge or my dad and they'd be telling me, listen, man, when you get in that ring, when you spar today, man, listen, I do try to hit you low.
You make sure you get your respect.
You don't accept this in the ring.
Like this is these are things that I was taught.
I was like I was taught to be a warrior at a young age.
And oftentimes trainers will train the body, but they don't train the mind.
So, plus, and also life experiences, things that I've been through with my mom, my dad, and just all that kind of stuff, plus my internal makeup, the way God made me.
All of that combined, I never had to be the loudest talker in the room because I knew that...
All the stuff, the real stuff, it's in me.
It's not on me.
So I'm the type that you hit me like that, I'm going to smile at you.
I got you.
We got another round to fight, sir.
So my anger, my get back, I'm going to get it within the confines of these rules, but you're going to feel me.
But from the time the first fight ended until the time the second fight started, I learned more about that guy in that period of time than I did in any round that I fought him in.
He said so much.
And I was poking holes in it.
I was quiet and I was just sitting back.
And everybody was misreading the silence.
Like, oh, Ward's scared.
He's not going to take the reading, man.
I'm just sitting there like, man, I'm taking notes, man.
This guy, keep talking.
Keep talking.
And he was just saying things.
I was like, this is a weakness.
Now, if he would have said, look, I felt like I won that fight.
I felt like they robbed me.
I'm coming back to get it.
And then went silent, went dark.
Now I'm like, man, this dude is getting ready.
We got to tighten up.
Kept talking, man.
Sometimes that talking will reveal a little bit too much about yourself.
And also the torque, you know, there was so much distance between like the length of his arms, the width of his shoulders, and then blap when that punch would come in.
He beat a lot of guys in their hometowns, home countries, and that's a reason why.
At a certain point in the fight, you would see him hit a guy, and then all of a sudden their body language was different.
And I think one thing that was lost on my whole career that nobody ever talked about was I probably had one of the best chins in the sport of boxing over the last, you know, at that time, 10 years.
Like, I had beaten the best, the heaviest punchers in the game and in my weight class.
Like, if you look at Kovalev, out of all the damage that he's done in the light heavyweight division, he had 20 rounds.
He had one moment.
He didn't have a wobble.
He didn't shake me up anywhere.
One moment, and it was a flash moment.
So just quantify that.
Like a guy who, his name is The Crusher.
Like he is who he is.
He had one moment in 20 rounds.
So a lot of it had to do with my chin.
A lot of it had to do with my toughness, which is also underrated.
And I just like, I know this is going to sound dramatic.
I know it's going to sound dramatic, but I didn't like to lose.
And for me, it was kind of like either win or die.
Like, that's how I felt.
Like, it wasn't that serious, but that's how it felt.
Like, I always thought about Sunday morning.
Like, dude, if you lose, it's going to be a crazy ride home on that plane.
Family's going to be looking crazy, feeling bad.
Everybody's going to be looking at you different.
Like, and you're going to feel crazy.
Like, I remember being curled up, like, in a ball on a Southwest flight, coming back from Lenexa, Kansas, losing the last fight I ever lost against John Revish.
And we were watching each other in separate backers.
So, you know, it's like a five day tournament.
You can fight four to five times and get to the finals.
And I'm looking at him.
And I was a little bit intimidated.
He didn't punk me like, oh, I'm scared to death, but I was like, man, I'm a little leery.
And he was knocking guys out, and I was decisioning guys along the way.
It could have went either way.
I think he won a 3-2 decision.
Three judges went his way, two judges went my way.
But if I was honest with myself, I got beat before the fight.
And at that moment, like, feeling the way I felt coming home, I made up my mind, like, dude, as much as that's up to me, like, that's never going to happen again.
Like, I can't control every aspect of the fight game.
Stuff happens, but it's not going to be because you beat me before the fight.
I can't live with this anymore.
So that was my motivation, man, just the drive.
Like, it was like, win or die.
And then here's the thing about boxing.
I don't know about MMA, but the only sport that I know of where one loss changes your pay scale.
Like, if you have a minimum, like, hey, you win a title, your first defense is this, second defense is that, these are your minimums, we'll negotiate beyond that, you know, whatever, whatever.
Go ahead and lose one.
That's going to get cut in half.
So a loss literally takes food off my family's table.
I also knew that my critics and my supporters, but namely my critics, they had a front row seat every fight.
So I'd get in the ring, you know, before the first bell would ring, and I'd go around and kind of just feel the ring out and kind of look out, and I'd always see them looking.
Is tonight going to be the night?
So I had that weighing on me.
I had the supporters that believed in me and was riding for me.
First couple rows, my family's right there.
My wife, my kids, I'd always blow her a kiss.
All of this stuff was tangible and real to me.
And that's the stuff that would drive me.
And so when I get knocked down by a Kovalev, that's fight or flight time, baby.
Like, whatever's in you is going to come out.
If you got some turn in you, that's the time you're going to turn.
It's going to be self-preservation mode.
And you're going to be more focused on surviving than you are trying to win.
And I thank God, man, that he had his hand on me that night, bro.
It is amazing how much energy people get from haters.
I mean, I don't recommend reading negative comments or negative articles.
But it's amazing how people with a certain kind of resolve, a championship resolve, will take that hater shit and you'll get up 15 minutes earlier than you're supposed to.
And you'll have more intensity in your shadowboxing and you'll just push harder.
So the Super 6 tournament, though, was where people knew you were an Olympic gold medalist, but that was where, like, coming into that, who was the favorite?
The favorite was kind of like threefold, but it was Kessler.
Arthur Abraham was dominant at 160. He had just moved up to 68, so everybody felt like it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to dominate at the heavier weight class.
Carl Frotch was the WBC champion, but he was still kind of like relatively unknown.
Like, you know, he had potential, had a belt, but, you know, he was probably, you know, I don't know, the third favorite.
And then you had...
Andre Durrell.
Obviously, you had myself and you had Jermaine Taylor.
And the Americans, or at least this is how I viewed it, we were just there to make it interesting.
It wasn't about us.
It was the Europeans party.
And it's funny because I almost didn't fight in a tournament.
I was in Mexico on vacation.
And I've been hearing about the Super 6s.
But internally, me and my manager, he was like, I don't think these things will come together.
These guys are fighting.
Hey, man, go enjoy your vacation.
So I did that.
I flew into San Diego.
We drove to Mexico.
And I ended up getting like a double ear infection.
So I'm like, I had a little bit of internet access.
I'm looking at stuff.
I'm like, these guys are like, wait, they're doing a kickoff press conference in New York.
So I called James.
I'm like, Jay, what's up?
He was like, hey, man, you need to get there like ASAP, bro.
This thing's going down.
I'm like, whoa.
I'm like, you told me it wasn't going to happen.
He's like, I didn't think it was.
But he was also like, you know what, though?
If you don't want to go, it's all good.
We'll figure it out.
So I'm like, man, I don't want to go.
I'm just with my family.
I called Verge.
I give him the whole spiel.
It's probably like two, three times in my life he's had this kind of tone.
He was like, listen, son, you need to get on a plane.
You're not going to make the New York press conference.
The next stop is Germany, Arthur Abraham's home country.
Get there.
I'm like, man, I'm with my family.
Give him the whole spiel.
He said, get there.
So we pack up, we drive two or three hours to San Diego, get on a flight, drive my family back to the Bay Area, boom, drop them off, get on a flight of Red Eye that night, double ear infection, wake up in Germany, and that was their second stop, but that was my first stop.
And that's when I really got the revelation that, man, this is a joke.
They think that me, Darrell, and Taylor, we're just going to...
That's when I took exception and I was when I really kind of like realized the dude like this is either this is gonna be a sink or swim moment for you either you gonna get like I could have got ruined in the super six like it could have went a whole nother way or What I knew was in me was gonna be you know displayed and shown to the world and so when you beat Kessler and you won your first title that had to be a beautiful moment unreal unreal unreal and it was in my hometown Like
the same arena, Oracle Arena, where the Warriors have played for many, many years.
And I'm kind of salty.
They're leaving, man.
They're going to chase arena.
I'm not happy, man.
I'm not happy.
I used to pass by that arena on Highway 880 going to King's Gym.
And I used to look, and it'd be on the right side.
And I'd be like, man, Virgil, I wonder if I'm going to fight there one day.
I credit my faith in God and just feeling like there was a purpose for me to be in the game as the foundational reason.
But the practical reason was I've been dealing with pressure since I've been a baby.
Having two parents who were drug addicted at a young age, and one is a functional addict, and my dad, who raised me as a single parent, and then my mother was a full-blown addict for many, many years.
She's clean now.
She's doing good.
Like, that's pressure.
Started there.
Then, like, coming up throughout the ranks and, like, dealing with haters and all this stuff in the gym, in your private gym.
Well, not private gym, but the gym that you train at.
And you got some people that are with you.
Man, this kid's going to be the next.
And you got some people over there in the corner mumbling.
That kid ain't going to be nothing.
He's all right.
Like, you learn to deal with that stuff then.
Then go into the national tournaments.
You're dealing with people from all over the U.S. Then you go into the world tournaments.
Like, that's pressure.
Then you get to a point, so when I fought a guy like Sergey Kovalev, I'd already seen him before.
I'd fought Kovalev 15, 20 times in my career already.
The big, you know, menacing guy who everybody's afraid of.
Like, I've fought him before.
I fought him in the Olympics.
I fought three Russians in the Olympics.
So it wasn't that, oh, I'm guaranteed to win, but I had seen that before.
Even the critics and all the people.
Like, I've been dealing with this stuff my whole life.
And it wasn't anything new.
Does it feel good?
Absolutely not.
I mean, your hope is that everybody supports you.
But, you know, as successful as this podcast is...
When you fought for the world title in that very arena where he said you were going to be headlining when you were like 12, 13 years old, what the fuck was that like?
I remember the night before the fight, I had my guy, Jack, Edward Jackson, man, who's a great coach, great assistant, great strength and conditioning coach, boxing coach from Houston, Texas.
He'd been with me from day one.
I said, man, I got to get out of the room, man.
We drove to Trader Joe's just to get some Clif bars.
I just needed to clear my head.
And I remember talking to my Uncle Bob, who was my dad's best friend.
He wasn't my blood uncle, but he's basically like an uncle to me.
Huge boxing fan.
I remember just talking to him.
And I'm saying, baby, tomorrow's your day.
I'm going to be there front row, baby.
Tomorrow's your day.
Your dad always dreamed about this moment.
And just tears running down my eyes because I was just feeling the pressure.
I'm like, dude, I'm getting ready to fight for a world title at home.
The pressure, you can cut it with a knife.
But to be able to bear up under it and to go get it done, bro.
Yeah, I love the moment with me and Verge in the corner.
He showed his worth.
I already knew what he had, but he showed his worth.
He said, baby, listen.
Ali's been knocked down.
Sugar Ray's been knocked down.
They got up.
Now you get up.
Those are moments you live for.
You don't want to be on the canvas, but if you happen to find yourself there, you want to know that your team has what it takes, and you want to know that you have what it takes.
I was a second round, bro.
I clawed back 10 rounds against that guy.
The biggest night of my life.
And then having to deal with everything afterward.
It built me, man.
It made me strong.
Like, stronger.
And...
I won the second fight again with the first fight.
I already broke him in the first fight.
Something happened to him.
Right around the sixth round, he was still trying to win to a degree, but I knew physically.
I was like, man, I got him.
He's not the same.
Of course, he's going to whine about the decision because it didn't go his way, but I beat him in the first fight.
The second fight was the window dressing.
We just picked up where we left off.
But everything that transpired in the second fight really started in the first fight.
But don't you think that's inherent with boxing when there's certain people that don't ever want to accept defeat no matter what and when there's a situation where there's a possible reason why they lost that didn't sort of fit into the rule books like he hit me low or they stopped it too soon or the Kovalev fight you know like the second fight in particular like the first fight maybe he could make an argument That he thinks he should have won a decision, but the second fight.
I mean, he wasn't jumping up, looking to beat that eight count, dust his gloves off, and get back at it.
Where he did the funny dance and then the 15 unanswered shots after that.
And I would probably say out of the body shots that landed, maybe one straight a little low.
But again, bro, your name is the crusher.
If you hit me low, and I try to be as fair as I possibly can, I'm coming to get that back, bro.
If I feel like it's intentional, if it's an accident, it's all good.
It happens.
But if you're trying to dethrone me or beat me from a foul, I'm coming to get that back.
Why all of a sudden, all the people that said that you're not going to beat Kovalev, look what he did to this guy, he's going to do the same thing to you, you're too small.
Those are the same people coming to the rescue of a guy whose nickname is a crusher and who's menacing and all the stuff I've been saying.
And Roman Gonzalez, Saritsukai, Soren Visai were getting ready to fight their rematch at the Home Depot Center.
I think it was September 9th.
September 6th, that was a Wednesday.
I was supposed to be in LA to announce the new signing and get ready to call that fight.
That Wednesday, I come home and I'm kind of like, I'm not boo-hooing, but I'm in tears.
And I tell my wife, I was like, I don't want to do it anymore.
And even saying that sounded crazy to me.
She was like, she was just real quiet.
I'm thinking like, why is she not saying nothing?
I was like, I don't think I'm going to do this anymore.
And she said something she had never said previously.
Typically, she's like, babe, look, it's not time.
Come on, you got to get up.
I know you feel this way.
I know you're back, but come on.
I feel like you still got time in the sport.
First time she ever agreed with me, she was like, I think the decision is already made, Dre.
I was like, what?
She said, I think the decision is already made.
She said, I've been looking at you throughout this whole day and some of the stuff you've been saying and I've never really seen you like this.
She said, I think it's already made.
I took that out, bro.
Started making phone calls.
Called my lawyer who's, you know, one of my good friends, Josh Dubin.
I said, hey, bro, I think that may be it for me.
And he had been wanting me to be, you know, done.
He was like, if you feel that way, bro, I'm going to support you.
Called my manager the next morning.
And it took us.
So I went that weekend and called the fight.
We held off on the announcement.
And my lawyer just told HBO, like, look, he's going through some things.
We're good.
Give us a couple of days.
So I got through that weekend.
And he said, do you still feel like that come Monday morning?
I was like, bro, I think I'm done.
Long story short.
We ended up announcing it September 21st.
It was like a two-week period.
We were trying to keep it under wraps.
But I was undoing all the stuff.
I was letting the necessary people know.
Roc Nation, HBO, everybody know.
And the night before I announced it, man, me and my good friend, who's a director, he's also directing my doc, Deontay Thompson, we put together this video.
It was like a legacy video where I had my young son, my middle son, and my oldest son.
And those were like, you know, that was me at that point in time in my career.
And we did this whole video that I was going to announce my retirement with.
And I actually have the doc that I'm working on right now.
It's about this.
Like, why did the best fighter of the world at that time walk away from the sport on top?
Shot that video out, man.
The day of my retirement, bro.
And the response was just overwhelming.
You know, it was overwhelming.
Like, I just couldn't believe the amount of people that were reaching out.
And it was like good and bad.
Like, it was good because I was getting support.
But it felt like somebody died.
Like, I felt like I died, bro.
I'm looking at these rest in peace, like, not literal rest in peace, but, like, the comments were, like, rest in peace, like, bro, are you, I couldn't believe, man, I'm, what, like, Ward, not you, man, oh my god, man, and it was just, it was, like, just this huge reaction, and it was overwhelming,
and in the two years that followed, Like I said at the beginning of this podcast, harder than I thought it was going to be, one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing I've ever had to do and still have to do.
It's a daily decision to be like, I'm not doing it no more.
But one of the most rewarding, man.
And it was a necessary evil.
And I hope that one day, man, the young guys can look up one day and say, man, I'm going to do the Andre Ward.
I'm done.
I'm out.
Like, how long do we have to do it before we feel satisfied?
Look, bro, save your money.
If you're not financially literate, go get some help.
Ask questions.
And as soon as you feel like you're not really there, you don't want to do it no more, right off in the sunset, bro.
He's an interesting, intelligent guy that just said, eh, we're good.
We did everything we need to do.
We did everything we need to do.
Having those guys like you is so important for young fighters because they get told by the assholes, hey, all fighters are going to wind up with brain damage.
All fighters are going to wind up going out on their back.
They're all going to wind up coming back after their prime.
It's so important for guys like you to say, you know, no, you can manage it correctly.
These are shark-infested waters.
But if you stay on the rocks and you do your due diligence and you put in the work and your discipline and you fight correctly, I agree with you so wholeheartedly about appreciation of the masters.
Of a real masterful boxer.
When I always talk to people about Floyd Mayweather, they talk all this shit, he does this, he does that, he's got all this money.
I go, save all that.
Forget about his talking.
Watch how that guy fights.
He fucking barely gets hit.
He's been rocked maybe twice in his whole career.
Maidana and Sugar Shane Mosley.
Those are the only two.
The only two guys who cracked him.
And he wound up winning both those fights.
He's a master.
Masterful boxer.
And that's what everybody should emulate.
I mean, I love the Arturo Gotti, Mickey Ward fights as much as anybody did.
But if that was my son...
I'd be freaking the fuck out.
I'd be like, don't fight like that.
It's not worth it.
I don't give a fuck how many of these drunken assholes cheer you on.
They're not gonna be with you when you wake up in the morning, your head is pounding in your head, when you have a hard time looking at light, when you have to have all the shades closed, when just a little crack of light coming in through the shade is hurting you.
It's giving you a headache.
They're not going to be there with you when you're old.
Because there's talk of other fighters, there's talk of, I mean, he goes through money like water, and he's got a fuckload of it, but goddamn he loves to spend it, and he's had some financial troubles in the past because of his flashy lifestyle.
But his skill and his overall boxing ability and his ability to talk shit and generate interest have pulled him out of these problems.
The only thing I could think would maybe talk him out of it is if there was something that could generate a massive amount of money, like a Pacquiao fight.
Like a Pacquiao fight, you know, Pacquiao still, I mean, after he beat Keith Thurman, like, whoo!
But when you look at what Canelo does, like when he knocked out Amir Khan, he's that, you know, he, that motherfucker could put some heat on some punches.
And you could see in that fight, him realizing as the fight was going on, like, oh, fuck, I'm on another level of this video game, and I don't know how to beat this boss.
Floyd was just shutting him down and just doing beautiful things.
For people who appreciate boxing, that's one of the best fights to watch because you've got this murderous young upstart who's a devastating puncher, who's a big, strong kid, who's just tough as fuck.
He just embraces that Mexican style of fighting pressure, a lot of power, moving forward.
And that's our job as analysts and writers to educate the people.
You're going to have your diehards.
They're going to pick and choose what they like.
And generally speaking, the diehard is going to appreciate both styles and maybe have a favorite style.
But they're going to tune in for all of them.
The fight is over the casual.
And we in boxing, we kill ourselves.
We shoot ourselves in the foot because A, there's so much infighting.
And then you have people literally, like when a guy's fighting, a master's fighting, oh man, it's not worth watching.
I'll give you an example.
I'll bring it to the MMA world.
I'm a casual MMA fan.
Gilbert Melendez, I've worked out with him, Nick and Nate, and a couple other guys.
So I'll watch if one of those guys, some of those guys don't fight anymore, or Cormier, or maybe a John Jones.
I'll watch those types of guys.
I've never heard, maybe you can enlighten me, I've never heard an announcer rip a guy.
Even if a guy has no ground game, he's like, look, if so-and-so gets him on the ground, he's in trouble.
But if you stand up with this guy, you're giving me a reason to stay engaged.
We in boxing, a lot of times, and we have in past times, I think we've gotten a little bit better as of late.
This is terrible.
Listen, man, if I'm a casual fan, why am I going to stick around?
The fight is over the casual, not the hardcore fan.
So, We make, you know, a guy who can hit and not get hit, like it's some, you know, some super, like this is some special thing that, you know, you got to be really, really smart to understand.
It's really not.
It's the fundamentals of the game.
Like when you go into a gym for the first time, hey man, use your jab.
Hey man, you hit this guy, take a half step back so he can't return fire.
It's the fundamentals of the game at the highest level.
It's not that deep.
It's really not.
It's being presented to people like it's deep.
It's hit and not get hit.
And even in the whole hit and not get hit concept, you're going to get hit.
You're going to get hit.
You can't avoid contact all the time.
And then you got to be able to see, okay, this dude, he really doesn't like to get hit, but man, he just got hit with that good shot.
Man, he came back.
Man, he responded.
Wow, man, that dude does have heart.
If you're really looking at it, you're going to see a fight.
You're going to see boxing all in one fight, even against a guy who's a master.
There's a way that sports people write, and there's a way that sports people do commentary where it's very negative, and they like to call people bums.
There's an appeal to a certain kind of fan, and it's very profitable to be very negative and to talk about a certain way.
I made a very conscious decision when I started doing commentary to celebrate these fighters and to try to honor their hard work and what they're doing and to let people know how spectacular it is to me someone who loves the sport.
And I stay away from negative as much as possible unless it's absolutely negative to talk about.
To show, like, maybe someone would have to make some egregious error for me to say, don't ever do this.
When I talk about these guys, I want people to feel how I feel when I watch, if I watch Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson, who's one of my favorite of all time, and one of the things about Demetrius, to me, that's so spectacular, was that he was able to fight these amazing fighters and make them look like they had no business being in there with him.
His movement, his arsenal, His technique.
He could do anything.
He could take you down.
He could submit you.
He could kick you.
He could punch you.
His footwork, his movement was masterful.
But he had a hard time finding an audience.
I did my best.
I did my best to let people know, like, you are watching a special person.
You're watching a magician in there.
I mean, he's on the highest level I've ever seen in all my years of watching combat sports.
Well, you guys have replaced the best, which used to be HBO. When HBO went away, man, I was like, I can't believe they're getting out of the boxing game.
You know, our lead producer, Mike McQuaid, Joe Tessitore, Tim Bradley, Mark Kriegel, Bernardo Asuna, Christina Poncho.
Like, we are trying to be fair and objective, but yet truthful.
And everybody has a reverence for the guys that are getting in there.
And with all of that on the table, then we try to call it from that point.
What's happening in past times, and even a little bit still today, is personal agendas, personal issues spill over into the commentary or into the article that's being written.
If you don't like Floyd's lifestyle, I don't ascribe to Floyd's lifestyle, but that's not my business.
Now, wherever you have him on that list, that's your decision.
Subjective.
But people would take the lifestyle and things that was, oh, Floyd, no, man, you're letting that spill over into this, and now you're messing up this broadcast right now because Floyd's doing something and we're not acknowledging it, and it's clear that you don't like him.
That's the issue.
Keep those things separate.
Lifestyles, lifestyles.
You're going to talk about that and you're doing a background story or whatever, okay, address that.
Well, it's so interesting, too, to see a guy like you who is a former two-division world champion and an Olympic gold medalist who also transitions to be an excellent broadcaster because there's only been a few.
George Foreman, I love him to death, but he was odd when he was doing commentary.
Well, I hope neither fighter looks past, particularly Deontay and Ortiz, because Ortiz hit him with some fucking bombs in that first fight and had him hurt, man.
Well, Al Heyman and those guys over there, they got all the welterweights.
So, if you don't, if you're not, you know, if you don't really like the other side, or if you feel some type of way about ESPN and top rank, and you know that Terrence is wanting this fight, why not make him wait a year or two and let your guy, Errol Spence, try to clean out the whole welterweight division?
Now, he has Sean Porter coming up, and that's not going to be an easy fight for either guy, and I respect it and got a lot of love for both.
But they're trying to squeeze him out.
So, they're looking at us like, yeah, I hear you.
You want that fight, but we got bigger plans.
I'm going to let my guy amass a bigger following.
He's got a big following in Dallas, in Jerry's world.
Jerry Jones is behind Errol Spence.
So that's what they're doing right now.
And as a fan, I don't like it.
But as a businessman, I get it.
I understand what they're doing.
But from what you're saying, to your point, my only thing with that...
And I've told both guys this, like, you can't say that you're the best.
And you may feel like you're the best.
You may tell yourself you're the best, but you really don't know if you're the best until you fight the best.
And that's my only thing with boxing as it stands today.
Like, social media, man.
Social media tells a lot of lies.
Like, it's some young guys coming up.
I'm not going to name any names.
But it's some young guys coming up who have a lot of potential.
Could possibly be the guy.
But they're not fighting anybody.
But yet they'll go to social.
Yeah, I'm the man.
I'm next.
Floyd's gone.
I'm next.
And you get social.
Yeah, you're right, man.
You're next.
Come on, man.
It's something called box wreck or fight facts.
Punch in their name.
You go to the search.
Punch in first.
Last name.
And you got to be specific with BoxRec.
Because if you misspell a letter in the name, it won't pop up.
So get the name right.
First and last.
And then all of a sudden, the record pops up.
First fight to whatever their last fight was.
And then you can cross-reference the guys they beat.
Oh, this dude he beat was 20-0.
Click on that dude's name.
Ah, this dude ain't fought nobody.
So his 20-0 really ain't a real 20-0, and you're hanging your hat on the fact that you beat that guy.
It's a lot of that in the game, and guys aren't willing to test themselves.
Now listen, it's a place for building.
It's a place for getting seasoning.
I'm not a fan of rushing.
That's not what I'm saying.
But at a certain point in time, If you're going to say that you're the best and that you're the next Floyd and that you...
Regardless of what weight class you may be, you got to test yourself against the best because guess what?
You don't even know how good you are.
You won't know until you face another guy.
Like I said this the other day when I was in the UK. I said everybody wants to be a lion when there's no lions around.
You can be a lion in the company of hyenas.
But when you're facing another lion, now we're going to see what you're really working with.
Yeah.
Everybody's a soldier when there's no wars going on.
But when a war happens, now we're going to see what you're made of.
I would just like to see at a certain point in time, I get making money, I get the political stuff that's going on, but at some point in time, if your pupil is going to say that they're the best, you've got to face the best.
So we can really see who's who.
Now, if you're not about that life, and you're like, dude, I'm just trying to make as much money for the least amount of risk, I respect it, and at least you made your intentions clear.
But you can't have your cake and eat it, too.
You can't say you're the best, but not fight the best.
I like what boxing does in that the managers dictate who the fighters fight and that they do build their fighters up correctly.
And one of the things that bothers me about MMA is I think there's some really good young fighters who get ruined because they get thrown to the wolves too quickly and they wind up getting their confidence shattered, they get knocked out maybe when they shouldn't be.
They're fighting a caliber of fighter they're not prepared for.
For every one fighter like that, you know, there's always the arguments of a guy like Jon Jones, youngest ever light heavyweight champion, youngest ever UFC champion.
Fights a legend, Mauricio Shogun, who when he was 22 or 23, I think he was 23 years old, opens up with a flying knee, hits him in the face, beats the fuck out of him, and takes the title.
For every Jon Jones, there's a guy who's coming up that maybe could have been a world champion, but didn't get managed correctly, and the UFC doesn't give you any options.
The UFC says, hey, you want to fight Kamaru Usman?
We necessarily see the highest caliber of fighter fight, the highest caliber of fighter with the best case scenario at all times.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I don't think we get to see the most out of some of these guys.
Because I think that if they were managed, if there was a ton of different promoters around, and you weren't locked in any specific sort of an organization like the UFC has, I think you could see more managers saying, Hey man, you're not ready for Robbie Lawler.
Hey man, you're not ready for this guy.
We're going to take this fight on a regional level.
We're going to build you up.
We're going to get you to 15, 16-0.
Then we're going to start challenging some top 10 contenders and cement your place.
But this way...
You'll have seen all the looks.
You'll have seen a great wrestler.
You'll have seen a great striker.
You fought a Muay Thai champion.
You fought a jiu-jitsu guy.
You know how to handle all these different scenarios.
And in MMA, that is part of the problem is that it's not just your hands.
There's so many different scenarios that you have to deal with.
But if you look at some of these other divisions, it's like, man, dude, how many posts can you have where you're saying that you're the best, but yet you're refusing to fight the best?
He says if he starts hitting the pads again and hitting the bag again, well, even at 50, he says his ego starts firing up again and he starts thinking about it.