Andre Ward trained to look for knockout of Sergey Kovalev in Saturday's rematch

LAS VEGAS – One of the lasting images from the first light-heavyweight title bout between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev was Ward’s longtime trainer, Virgil Hunter, exhorting his fighter between rounds to dig down deep and will himself to victory after Ward had been knocked to the canvas in the second round.

It might have been Hunter’s greatest Knute Rockne moment.

Of course, Ward did just that, coming back to win most of the second-half rounds to to end up with a hard-fought though controversial unanimous decision victory Nov. 19 at the T-Mobile Arena here.

Asked about that this week, Hunter said, “I don’t even remember what I said. I haven’t watched the fight with the sound on. But I just know Andre and I feel whatever I said was the right thing. There’s another part of him that I can appeal to that doesn’t even involve strategy. Just let him be himself so he can create on the fly. That’s how well I know him. We started at nine years old.”

Now, 24 years later, the trainer and his fighter, who are inextricably linked – Ward was 18 when his father died and Hunter, as always, was there as his father figure –are preparing for battle again. Ward will defend the three belts he took from Kovalev last fall in the rematch on Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center (HBO pay-per-view, 9 p.m. ET, $64.95 on HD).

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Ward, 33, born and raised in Oakland, Calif., has not lost a fight since he was 12. The last U.S. Olympic male boxing gold medalist (2004) is 31-0 with 15 KOs and ranked No. 1 on Ring Magazine’s pound-for pound list. Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) is No. 2. Yet Hunter is so confident in his fighter than that he believes this time Ward can stop Kovalev.

“Me knowing Andre’s mindset and how he approaches things, I told him that we’ll train for a knockout,” Hunter said. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to come, but we’ll train for it. It’ll be quite evident in the fight. (Andre’s) going to get hit because you got to get hit to win and get knockouts.

“I’ve only trained Andre to purposely knock out somebody twice – the first one was Chad (Dawson), the second is this one. I won’t say how we’re going to do it, but he’s very capable of doing it.”

To drive home that point, Hunter talked about Ward’s underrated physical strength.

“You’re talking about a kid who had a football scholarship offer for Division I as a safety,” Hunter said. “I had him running track, running the mile, just for boxing, and he loses to this kid who was best in the state by three feet. I’ve seen him playing football in the street, and just to win, dives on the concrete. That tells me a lot about his will to win, and he’s proven that.”

When Kovalev dropped Ward that night, the second time in his career he’s been down, it was a good, hard shot that buzzed Ward a bit. But he views it as a blessing in disguise.

“He came out in the first couple rounds and he established his jab; he established himself and I give him credit for that,” Ward said of Kovalev. “That was my fault and it’s what I have to change. I can’t allow that to happen in the second fight.  

"The punch was just a good shot. ... The punch was actually a blessing in disguise, because once he landed that, I kind of had a smile on my face because I knew, like, 'OK, you got me,’ but I gotta get this back. And things kind of shifted after that.”

There are some who feel Kovalev’s only chance to win is by knockout, but Ward is not among them. He knows Kovalev is not a one-dimensional power puncher.

“I don’t feel that way. I think Kovalev is a good boxer,” he said Thursday. “He’s a champion-caliber fighter. I never felt like that’s his only shot. You saw in the early part of that fight he had some success. He can jab, he can box, he can do a lot, he’s not just a one-dimensional fighter. So I’ve never felt like that.”

That doesn’t mean Ward doesn’t look at Kovalev’s reputation as one of the meanest fighters inside and outside the ring as anything more than a bullying tactic.

“I’ve been doing this over two decades, and I’ve fought 30 Kovalevs in my day, and I’m talking about his mentality. Some of my toughest fights were not guys doing all the loud talking and all the posturing,” Ward said. "But all the tough talking, and the over-the-top stuff, and then when the guy gets in your face he’s quiet as a mouse?

“He’s hiding something and he showed that during the second half of the first fight and he’s going to show it again.”

Ward, in fact, prides himself on his meanness inside the ring.

“I’m one of the meanest fighters in the sport,” he said. “I turn the switch on and I’ve fought some of the biggest and the baddest and I don’t run and hide. I actually go towards (my opponents), and look for the action. But you don’t have to be a jerk outside the ring and you don’t have to mistreat people in the process.”

Ward takes exception to Kovalev’s reputation for using racial overtones in some of his tweets. Kovalev’s trainer, John David Jackson, who is black, insists that his fighter is not racist.

“My gym is predominantly black. And if he was racist, he would’ve got his ass beat,” Jackson said. “All those cats that hang around the gym, they would’ve took off on him back then. If you were racist, why would you even be in there? Listen, he gets a bad rap to a degree and he says things he shouldn’t say sometimes. But racist? No, he just doesn’t think things through sometimes.”

Ward simply doesn’t like the way Kovalev treats people sometimes. “He’s been called out on it and he continues to do it, and I don’t think I need to stand up and point out what he’s saying,” Ward said. “People know what he’s doing. They see it. They just choose not to deal with it. But he and I will handle that on fight night."

While Ward has a healthy respect for Kovalev’s boxing ability, he does not view the Russian nicknamed “Krusher” as the toughest fighter he’s faced.

“I think a lot of people got caught up in just the reputation of this guy. And I haven’t bought it from day 1. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect him, or I’m discounting his ability. He’s a champion, and once a champion, always a champion in my book,” Ward said. “He’s a really good fighter. But I fought a lot of really good fighters. I fought a lot of champions in my career. And they’re all different in different ways. But no, he wasn’t the toughest and wasn’t the hardest puncher I’ve fought.”

Ward, though he insists retirement is not on his radar at the moment, would love to leave the sport that’s made him rich and famous -- he is guaranteed $6.5 million for Saturday's fight -- with an undefeated record. But he understands and appreciates how difficult that is, and doesn’t obsess over it. He simply wants to leave behind a strong legacy, which means everything to him.

“God has blessed me with a tremendous talent and my desire has always been to give him a return on that gift he’s given me. I don’t want to squander it,” Ward said. “One of the saddest things in life is wasted talent. Whatever my niche is in this sport, whatever impact I’m supposed to have in and out of the ring, I just want to make sure I maximize that so when it is time to walk away, I won’t have any regrets."