By Keith Idec
Andre Ward hasn’t felt any signs of physical slippage during training camp for his rematch with Sergey Kovalev on Saturday night.
Ward is 33 years old and almost 2½ decades removed from the beginning of his boxing career, but the IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion still feels fresh. The 2004 Olympic gold medalist isn’t sure how much longer he’ll box, yet Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) says he possesses the same strong desire that enabled him to clean out the super middleweight division and become the first professional fighter to defeat the 34-year-old Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs).
“Anytime you get over 30, you start to become more mindful that you’re punching the clock,” Ward said during a recent conference call. “I think at the end of the day, the gauge is the desire. When I look at the desire that I had in my early-20s, mid-20s, in terms of the way that I put out, the duration of training, my coaches having to pull me back and fight with me to take days off, you know, when I compared the 20s to the 30s, it’s still the same. It’s still the same.”
The only concession Ward has made during training camps in recent years is doing more to help his body recover from running, sparring and strength & conditioning work.
“If anything’s different, I have to give more attention to my body after I abuse it and break it down,” said Ward, who narrowly won a unanimous decision over Kovalev on November 19 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. “Massage therapy, cold vat, those kind of things, that’s pretty much what’s changed. But the desire’s still there. You know, I’m not getting hit with punches that I normally wouldn’t get hit with. Guys in sparring, that I would normally deal with and hold off, they’re not having their way [with me]. These are the signs you look at as you get into your early- to mid-30s, and if you’re lucky enough beyond that, to see if it’s a situation where it’s time to walk away. And those types of things aren’t even happening.”
Ward will make the first defenses of his three 175-pound championships against Kovalev at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Their scheduled 12-rounder is the main event of a four-fight HBO Pay-Per-View broadcast scheduled to being at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT ($64.99 in HD).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.