By TMZ Sports

IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight champ Andre Ward (31-0, 15KOs) has a message for anyone still questioning his victory over Sergey Kovalev from this past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

"People are entitled to their opinion. It was definitely a close fight that I feel I won, hands down. I feel like I earned it, I did what I had to do. I feel like I took it from the champion," Ward said.

"I have no problem with anyone saying that he should have won maybe by a point, maybe a close round that went to me should have went to him, but if there is anyone out there who is blowing a horn calling it a robbery, that there is some political attachment.. if you know anything about my career I'm not the guy that gets those kind of breaks. I'm always the guy who has to earn everything. So if my hand got raised, I earned it."

Kovalev and his team were furious over the loss ... saying Ward's unanimous decision victory had more to do with politics than boxing.

Ward talked to TMZ Sports and said that's all sour grapes ... and he's more than willing to do it again, but warns that this time, he's had 12 rounds of schooling on the guy -- and that's bad news.

"I can do things different. Unfortunately his style is set. He has an Eastern European style, which is a great style and hard to deal with. It took me a few rounds to get used to, but that's the best that he has. At 32-years-old that's the best shape Kovalev can be in. That's the best fighter we're gonna see, and I don't believe the fans saw the best Andre Ward. Being that I've seen him already, the rematch is gonna be a lot different," Ward said.