By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Andre Ward doesn’t know if he’ll fight again after his rematch against with Sergey Kovalev, much less who he’d fight.

But if the 33-year-old Ward does return to the ring following their light heavyweight championship rematch June 17 in Las Vegas, he won’t move back down to the super middleweight division – not even for a showdown with middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Ward was asked Monday about comments made recently by his trainer, Virgil Hunter, who told a reporter for a YouTube channel that Ward would be able to make 168 pounds again for a long-discussed fight against Golovkin.

“I’m not going to 68,” Ward said following a press conference to promote his rematch with Kovalev. “That’s out. I heard something [that Hunter said]. I didn’t [see] the whole thing. But I’m not going [back to 168]. I said it before I moved up, and I wasn’t playing.

“That was a real opportunity for [Golovkin] to take that fight. He didn’t want the fight or whatever the case. He wanted to push it out two, three years. I’m not – once you go up, you can’t go back down. If he wants to come up, that’s another story. But I’m not going back down.”

Hunter, who made his comments last month to TownBizzNizz Sports & Media, said Ward still is really a super middleweight, not a true light heavyweight. When a bout between Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) and Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) was considered a realistic possibility, Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, suggested to ESPN.com in July 2015 that they’d have to fight at a catch weight of 164 pounds, not the super middleweight limit of 168.

“I know that they were willing to fight anybody from 154 to 168,” Hunter said. “And at that time we were at 168. So when we found that out, we said, ‘Why not? We will fight you at 168.’ It didn’t have anything to do with the talk that nobody wanted to fight [Golovkin]. It was a legitimate fight – the best fight the best.

“We consider him a top fighter, one of the best, so why not? When it came to [making the fight], that’s when they came with a lot of excuses or reasons [to not do it]. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say reasons.”

While Ward since has moved up to 175 pounds, Kazakhstan’s Golovkin remains at middleweight, two divisions below Ward. The IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC 160-pound champion is still trying to land an elusive, lucrative pay-per-view fight against Canelo Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.