Retirement is fitting former world champ Andre Ward just fine
LAS VEGAS – Andre Ward will be ringside on Saturday, calling the Orlando Salido-Mickey Roman fight for HBO instead of inside the ring displaying the talent that helped him become one of the greatest fighters of this generation.
Ward, 33, announced his retirement shortly after stopping Sergey Kovalev in June in the eighth round of their rematch at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. It was hardly unexpected, but disappointing for true boxing aficionados because Ward’s technical expertise was a thing of beauty.
Despite winning a gold medal in 2004 and going 32-0 as a pro, Ward was never truly appreciated for his greatness. He was a thinking man’s fighter in an era when those who pay attention to boxing eschew that type of approach, favoring the all-out kind of slugfest that Salido-Roman figures to be.
Ward wasn’t the chummiest guy with the media. He didn’t suffer fools and made no bones about the fact he had little interest in being involved in the types of toe-to-toe brawls that have made Salido a cult hero among certain segments of the fan base.
The appreciation for the art of boxing has waned over the last half-century, to the point where a master craftsman such as super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and undefeated pro, struggles to get fights on television.
Ward said that in many cases, boxing fans don’t have the same appreciation for the technical aspects of the sport and its subtleties as MMA fans do.
“In many cases, collectively speaking as a sport, we’re our own worst enemy,” Ward said. “I’m a casual MMA fan, and I’ve said this before, but I’ve never been to an MMA event, whether it’s a smaller one or the UFC or Bellator or whatever the case may be, where anybody was bashing any of the guys in there. It’s always, ‘Yeah, this guy doesn’t have a good stand-up game, but if he gets you on the ground, you’ve got trouble.’ And me being a casual fan, it keeps me engaged.
“What I mean by that is, I know this guy has four losses maybe, and his stand-up isn’t the best, but I’ve heard that he’s great on the ground and so I’m going to watch for that and see what he can do. I don’t criticize his stand-up game; I appreciate his ground game. Sometimes, we’re our own worst enemy in boxing and it causes casuals to become disinterested. Some guys are singles hitters, and they’re the best at what they do. And other guys, they’re doubles, triples hitters, and they can hit it out of the park, but they don’t hit for average. And so, I think if you appreciate boxing as a sport, you have to kind of love it all.”
Salido is a wildly entertaining fighter who holds a win over Vasyl Lomachenko, who is arguably the best fighter in the world. Salido beat Lomachenko in Lomachenko’s second pro fight when they were competing for the WBO featherweight title. Salido missed weight and lost the title on the scales, but edged Lomachenko by decision in a foul-filled match.
Lomachenko is fighting Rigondeaux on Saturday on ESPN in the first matchup in boxing history to pit two double gold-medal winners against each other in the pros. HBO made the decision to counter program that fight by putting Salido-Roman on the same night.
Salido, who was involved in the Yahoo Sports Fight of the Year in 2014 and ’16, is not a pure boxer like Ward or Rigondeaux, but Ward said it’s unfair to say he’s without skill.
“Salido is a fighter who is getting older and he’s got some miles on him, for sure,” Ward said. “He’s been in a lot of wars and we’ll see Saturday night kind of what he has left in the tank because he’s got another fighter in there who isn’t going to be hard to find. It’s going to be toe-to-toe and a war of attrition. I’ve always admired Salido because when you have a guy like that, it’s easy to lose sight of some of the crafty things that are going on with Salido, or guys in the past like Jose Luis Castillo or a [Julio Cesar] Chavez.
“These guys are taking punches, but they’re rolling with a lot of punches and there’s an art and a craft to that. They’re smart about getting inside and they’re touching guys in certain spots and they’re putting money in the bank for the later rounds. That kind of gets overlooked because of the brutality with which they fight. I love watching veterans and I love seeing Salido because there’s a lot more to what he does than initially meets the eye.”
That was always the case with Ward, who was a complex fighter who was supremely skilled and able to avoid the kind of slugfests that have defined Salido.
Ward could probably have gone on for several more years at a high level, and would have racked up big money for doing it, but he said he knew it was time and has no regrets about walking away at a relatively young age.
“At the end of the day, I made the decision that was right for me, and I didn’t feel the need to wait for people to give me acclaim,” Ward said. “I know the skills I possess and I know what I accomplished, and whether the public or the media acknowledges it, it doesn’t really matter. That doesn’t take away from what I’ve done and the level I’ve been fortunate enough to compete at since I was a teenager. The proof is in the pudding and the résumé is there.
“I’m content with what I’ve done and with what I’ve accomplished. I know the names I have on my résumé. But I’ll tell you, I talked to a lot of ex-athletes from other sports and I asked them when they knew it was time to walk away. They all said the same thing, that I’d just know. I had one guy tell me that one day, you’re going to wake up and look at your wife and say, ‘I don’t want to do it any more.’ That sounded strange at the time, but it was correct. I get it. I got to that point and I knew it was time and I’m at peace that I’ve made the right choice for me.”
More boxing on Yahoo Sports:
