Never satisfied- Andre Ward’s legacy and its critics
By Grant Miller
The top-ranked boxer in the world retired on Thursday, and he announced it with two words on Twitter.
Mission accomplished.
He then played a video showing himself walking away from a long line of belts hanging on boxing ring ropes behind a trophy, showing all the major victories he earned without a single defeat.
But there were plenty of doubters, and he earned those belts proving them wrong.
By going undefeated as an amateur and a professional for over 20 years, Andre Ward used what he learned from boxers before him to beat some of the best fighters in the world with a mixture of intelligence, confidence, and humility, but he spent his career getting criticized anyway.
Ward (32–0) was a boxing trendsetter. By the time he turned pro, he hadn’t lost a fight since he was 12 years old, and he was the last male boxer to win a gold medal for the USA Team after he won in 2004. As a professional he ran through the Super Six Tournament and cleaned out the super middleweight division before moving up to light heavyweight after a couple years of inactivity due to legal issues and injuries. And still, with inactivity and ring rust working against him, Ward won and defended three of the championship belts in a higher weight class.
Fans may look fondly on him now, but Ward went underrated while he beat all the guys who were supposed to beat him. In 2009, people predicted that Mikkel Kessler would beat Ward, including other Super Six Tournament members Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham. Ward defeated Kessler in a controversial decision, and he moved on to beat Abraham and Froch as well to become the super middleweight undisputed champ.
In 2015, Ward spoke about how throughout his career, someone always criticized his work.
“First it was, ‘He got an amateur style.’” Ward said. “Then it was ‘There’s no way he’ll beat this guy’. Somehow…[I]kept winning. Then it was ‘His style is boring.’ Now it’s ‘Nobody wants to see him.’”
Ward moved up to light heavyweight and fought Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev, the undefeated knockout artist of the division. Some predicted Kovalev would give Ward his first loss, including trainer Abel Sanchez and fighter Nathan Cleverly.
Kovalev came close in November 2016. He landed a right straight that knocked Ward down in the second round, but Ward fought his way back into the fight with improved defense and a persistent body attack.
Ward edged out a unanimous decision score of 114–113.
Writers like Stephen A. Smith called it a robbery, but not everyone agreed, even those who thought Kovalev won.
Ward held his ground that he won a close fight and said Kovalev was nothing he hadn’t seen before, and he was right. This wasn’t this wasn’t first victory after a knock down. Darnell Boone hurt Ward worse than Kovalev in 2005, and Ward still won by unanimous decision.
Ward also said he was accustomed to bullies and wouldn’t be intimidated.
“Since I been a kid, people [were] always trying to sell fear,” Ward said. “[I’m] just not buying it…Look, if you beat me, you beat me, but you’re going to have to earn it.”
But the criticism didn’t stop there, especially from Kovalev who mocked Ward by calling him “Son of Judges” instead of his nickname “Son of God” in a 2017 tweet. It was common knowledge that Ward wore “S.O.G.” on his shorts as an expression of his Christian beliefs. Kovalev implied that Ward relied on judges more than the god he worships to win his fight.
Ward said he lost respect for Kovalev.
“That’s what’s going to be his downfall is his arrogance,” Ward said. “You put your mouth on my God…Pride comes before the fall, man, and you got to stay humble in this sport.”
Kovalev didn’t heed Ward’s warning about arrogance. Instead he threatened to end his career in a press conference for the rematch.
Ward’s prediction came true in their rematch in June. He beat Kovalev again with an educated body attack and a vicious right hand in the eighth round. Many called Ward’s punches low blows, but Bob Bennett, executive director of the Nevada Athletic State Commission, said all of the body shots, with the possible exception of one, were legal. An analysis of the fight shows the majority of those punches were on the belt line, even the punches Kovalev complained about.
Again, it was just another reason to criticize Ward even in victory.
Despite rising to the top of Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound list, Ward knew he didn’t get the props he deserved. He said past opponents Froch, Kessler, and Chad Dawson never gave him his just due, and Kovalev was no exception. He was used to it. But Kovalev had fans and writers on his side after both fights, even after he lost.
Ward called it nothing more than bias.
“They didn’t think I was supposed to be standing at the end of that fight,” Ward said. “There was a lot of sad faces[after the fight].”
There were some boxing experts who acknowledged Ward’s greatness. Max Kellerman pointed out that Ward didn’t get enough credit because some fans care more about an entertaining style than winning.
“I think [Ward] had a legitimate gripe about the way his career was handled,” Kellerman said. “People want their subjective preferences to be the objective reality.”
And the reality of Ward’s career is that he went undefeated because he always used his intelligence and determination to win despite the odds. His confidence in his abilities derived from his knowledge of the sport and his humble reliance on his team, not just his ego.
Ward knew that pride comes before the fall because a prideful fighter refuses to adapt when his normal style isn’t working, much like Kovalev didn’t adapt well enough to beat him.
The Fight City writer Lee Wylie, who has been studying boxing religiously for around 20 years, said Ward’s boxing IQ was his greatest strength.
“His ability to process was outstanding,” Wylie said, and he made a YouTube video likening Ward’s boxing to Bruce Lee’s “Be Like Water” philosophy. He described Ward’s fighting style throughout his career as a combination of Floyd Mayweather Jr.(body jab), Roy Jones Jr.(leaping left hooks in his earlier fights), Bernard Hopkins(right hand into the clinch), and Roberto Duran(inside fighting). Ward made a similar comparison for himself because he studied most of those fighters.
Wylie also said Ward was an “all-terrain” fighter who will forever be best known for his adaptability.
“Many boxers will stubbornly persist with their preferred tactics or techniques, regardless of their effectiveness, simply because they feel comfortable with them,” Wylie said. “Ward, on the other hand, often imposed not so much his own preferred tactics or techniques, but rather the ones that made his opponent less effective.”
Wylie actually had Kovalev winning their first fight, but he still said it was Ward’s most important victory of his career because he “seemed destined to lose” early on, but he seized control with “ring acumen, mental toughness, and unshakable will to win more than any other.”
The smartest move a successful boxer can make is retiring before he has taken too much damage, and Ward has done just that. When he announced his retirement this week, he said his body “can no longer put up with the rigors of the sport,” and he lost his desire to continue. While the ring may miss him, it’s unlikely that Ward will miss it. After disproving his critics for so long, he has nothing left to prove in the sport. All he can do now is leave us with the objective truth that he always won, no matter how much he was criticized, and teach his lessons of success to anyone humble enough to listen.
Ward now has more than enough wins to demand some respect.
