Trainer Virgil Hunter Speaks Out on the Criticism of Andre Ward

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    Andre Ward v Edwin Rodriguez - News ConferenceThe narrative seems to be written by the media on Andre Ward. Even when he puts on a clinical display of the effective use of his boxing time after time, the loudest voices in the room try to dispel his claims at being the best in his generation. In a grouping of middle aged male bloggers predominantly interacting through twitter bashing the Bay Area based fighter oddly, the effect has lingered onto Ward’s career and perception as a fighter. In a candid 20 minute conversation with Virgil Hunter, ThaBoxingVoice.com’s senior staff members Nestor Gibbs and Joe Habeeb got an answer to why the Ward camp has not been so vocal back towards the criticism.

    “The reports are not asking the right questions.” Virgil Hunter, Andre Ward’s longtime trainer, explained as a double standard has been presented between his fighter and Gennady Golovkin. The phrase that is most troubling to Hunter comes from Abel Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer, who stated that they would fight anyone from 154 lbs. to 168 lbs. “Would you have picked GGG to beat Chavez Jr.?” Hunter asked. “You see this is the statement they made. We got criticized for Chad Dawson who said right there on TV, ‘When I am in the gym training as a light heavyweight I am down to 171, 172 anyway, so 168 will not be a problem, we want Andre Ward.’ We never asked him for that he said it right there on TV.”

    Hunter is referring to one of Ward’s most notable wins in which Ward recorded a TKO victory in the tenth round after dropping Dawson two times prior. The narrative the next day was written about how Ward calculatingly had Dawson come down in weight, had him drained and then knocked him out leaving out the fact that Dawson himself asked for the fight. “If he was weight drained why was he 18 lbs. heavier than us at the fight?” Hunter remarked to that notion.

    Still Andre Ward is a stoic figure who talks much like how he fights, choosing each word wisely and never talking for the sake of talking. Ward in reality is very private, but very kind hearted as well as a fan of the sport, but his demeanor to those who have never interacted with him could allow anyone to place any context of personality upon him since he is so minimal. Cross that with Golovkin, a jolly power puncher who comes off as charming with his errors of the English language as he learns mastery and you have a sharp contrast that creates a divide, and this is even before we get into a conversation upon race which we will not go into in this piece.

    This is an illustration of Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University’s concept of soft power. Soft power in short is the use of the ability to attract and co-opt others to want what you want rather than to use threats such as militarism. Golovkin essentially has the public viewing him as untouchable due to the fact that his performances have all had excitement along with the fact that he comes off humorous, making him the one. Public perception gives Golovkin the power to a certain extent no matter what any other fact says since in the court of public opinion as of right now he can do no wrong.

    Then we come to the common myth that Andre Ward is a boring fighter. I beg to disagree. Ward is a throwback fighter and uses his opponent’s weakness as his strength in the fight. For example, against Carl Froch a low hanging right hand prompted a left hook rapidly or against Allan Green he came forward against the bully and mauled him. Ward is a scientist or better yet like an Argentinian Malbec, if you don’t really know what you are witnessing then you may miss out on the experience as a whole.

    Hunter also took exception to Dan Rafael’s statement that Golovkin’s last numbers were sub-par due to “everyone knowing it would be a knockout.” “His people get up before the fight and I know you heard them. This is going to be the biggest fight of the year, 2 million.” Hunter expressed. “They don’t want to talk about Andre Ward did 1.3 million with no promotion against Edwin Rodriguez.” Hunter went on to say, What makes that number interesting as well is the fact that the UFC had one of its biggest fights of the year going head to head when Georges St. Pierre defended his welterweight title against Johnny Hendricks.

    “Triple G is a humble kid.” Hunter explained. “Let’s say he does move up then the public will say he is too small and he is quite a bit smaller than Ward and they will try and discredit triple G.” The problem is that the solution to this is not any simpler as Andre Ward has no apparent return to the ring as it appears his problems with promoter Dan Goosen are not easily solvable. Until then though we will have more chapters to the saga of Ward and Golovkin in a fight that many want to occur sooner rather than later.