Andre Ward: "Floyd is on to something...I wanted to take things a step further"

[thuggery]

lol @ people still defending him after refusing testing on 3 separate occasions.

pathetic fanboys

[bojangles1987]

wow.. ppl here dont seem to understand business too well.

when i first read (here) that ward refused testing i felt so dissapointed, but after learning all the facts i dont see how anyone can blame him.

the contract was already signed and sealed, the fight was done. ward didnt say no to testing, he said no, period. no to rodriguez asking for anything because the time for asking for things was over, rodriguz knows this too.

rodriguez doesnt really want testing, what he wants is to avoid a 100% focused andre ward come fight night. he has done this thing before (boxing), there is no way he is stupid enough to think someone is going to keep negotiating with him once the fight is made. he knew ward would turn down anything he asked for, so he picked drug testing knowing what a hot topic it is and how ignorant most "fans" and writers are.

just like when pascal did it to hopkins, the risk of hopkins becoming the oldest man to win a world title at his expense was putting a lot of pressure on him and you better believe he was getting asked about it on a daily basis. so he created a new subject, something else to talk about to take some of the attention away from what was weighing heavily on him. thats the only logical reason, again, everyone in the fight game knows how business is made. you negotiate in negotiations, not in training camp.

i dont think it will help rodriguez any though, ward isnt the kind of guy to take his eye of the price. most likely it will just motivate him to put more of a beating on rodriguez as he has basically dragged wards name through the mud through sheer manipulation.

Rodriguez doesn't want testing, yet he is testing and is signed up for the year round testing VADA does.

Right.

He didn't bring it up in negotiations because he has no power to demand anything like that, and would probably have not gotten the fight. Maybe he did bring it up and got shot down immediately and told to shut up, I don't know.

I like how this is also the same logic Pac fans used when Mayweather brought up testing, that was always laughed at. Mayweather may have brought it up in negotiations, but it was still a mind game. Yet we read on this site, "how would Floyd know Pacquiao would have such a problem with it? Is he a mind reader?"

But with Ward it's just mind games when a guy doing year round testing offers testing for his opponent.