ANDRE WARD’S trainer Virgil Hunter has said his fighter’s inactivity is not a result of wrangling with promoter Dan Goossen, but the failure of leading super-middleweights to step up and challenge him.
“It’s not the issues with the promoter that is keeping him from fighting, it’s the fact that no one wants to step up and fight,” said Hunter about Ward, who has been inactive since November 2013. “Unfortunately we’re in an era now where there isn’t James Toney, Gerald McClellen, Mike McCallum, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank around. Imagine those guys having someone like Andre Ward in their weight class – the number two pound-for-pound – and not wanting to fight him? It’s absurd. There are no willing challengers. I don’t understand it. It is what it is.”
Hunter is clearly frustrated but insists he, nor Ward, will lose any sleep over the situation.
“If people won’t fight him because he is too good, they should come out and say that. If it turns out he’s too good for his own good, then he’ll have to live with that.”
With Ward missing out on his peak years, would they consider a move to light-heavyweight?
“There’s no one at light-heavyweight right now apart Sergey Kovalev and Bernard Hopkins. The super-middleweight division is much deeper than the light-heavyweights, so why would he move up? He won’t.”
