By Keith Idec
John David Jackson wouldn’t have publicized his discussions with Andre Ward’s handlers had they not divulged details of those talks in a story broken by BoxingScene.com on Monday night.
But now that it’s public knowledge that Josh Dubin, Ward’s attorney and adviser, and James Prince, Ward’s manager, made Jackson an offer to leave Sergey Kovalev to join Ward and head trainer Virgil Hunter, Kovalev’s trainer doesn’t think it’ll disrupt the remainder of his fighter’s training camp one bit. Jackson views the timing of their revelation as a failed psychological ploy as the light heavyweight championship rematch between Ward and Kovalev nears.
“That’s called gamesmanship,” Jackson told BoxingScene.com following Kovalev’s open workout Tuesday in Oxnard, California. “They need to do everything they can because they need every advantage they can get. If you really think about it and you look at it – Sergey won the first fight. He proved he was the better boxer. He proved that he could out-box Ward. So going into the second fight, he can do the same thing. He just has to be smarter about it. So they need every advantage they can get.”
Jackson disputed what Dubin and Prince told BoxingScene.com about Jackson reaching out to them several months ago, before the Ward-Kovalev rematch was finalized for June 17 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas (HBO Pay-Per-View). Money was discussed, but Jackson insists it was Dubin and Prince that reached out to him.
Though Jackson said Dubin and Prince “threw me under the bus,” the former two-division champion didn’t appear all that angry about Dubin and Prince publicly discussing the offer to switch sides.
“There’s always gamesmanship in boxing,” said Jackson, who works with heavyweight contender Bryant Jennings, a fighter Dubin and Prince represent. “People try to offset their opponents, so it’s no big deal. It’s part of the game. Either you learn how to deal with it or you’re messed up if you can’t. It just shows me they’re concerned about this fight. Now they’re trying to do everything they can to throw Sergey off track.”
The 33-year-old Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), a native of Hayward, California, overcame a second-round knockdown to score a controversial unanimous-decision victory over Russia’s Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) in their 12-rounder November 19 fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Ward won the IBF, WBA and WBO 175-pound titles from Kovalev, who exercised an immediate rematch clause in their contracts.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.