WBO, WBA and IBF light heavyweight world champion Andre "S.O.G." Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) is hoping that Sergey "Krusher" Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) will be as angry as possible when they step in the ring for their highly anticipated rematch.
Their rematch takes place Saturday, June 17 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The championship event will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
They collided last November at the T-Mobile Arena, also in Las Vegas, with Ward walking away with a twelve round unanimous decision win. All three judges scored the fight for Ward by a single point, 114-113.
Kovalev has indicated at every turn that the upcoming rematch is personal.
He feels the judges robbed him of a victory and he's furious at Ward over their months of back and forth trash talking.
Kovalev has promised to destroy Ward in the rematch with a brutal knockout victory to end the Olympian's career.
"Get mad. I want you to get as mad as you can get. Because it's going to get worse and worse and worse, round by round. I don't mind his anger or any of that. I welcome it. He's gonna make mistakes and run into something," Ward warned.
Ward is also not even worried about the possibility of Kovalev gunning for a knockout at the very start of the fight. Ward was dropped in the second round of the first meeting, but after that moment he never came close to getting dropped again - as Kovalev got tired in the second half of the fight.
"[Kovalev knocking me out?] It's not just gonna happen. He's gonna have to bleed to do it. When you start talking about taking me away from my family or taking food off of my family's plate, it's not gonna happen, bro. That's how I look at it," Ward said.