Roach: I Don't Think Andre Ward is The Fighter He Used To Be

By Radio Rahim

In the opinion of Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, former super middleweight world champion Andre Ward (30-0, 15KOs) is the same fighter who dominated everyone at 168-pounds for several years.

Because of injuries and legal battles with his former promoter, Ward was inactive from November of 2013 to June of 2015. Ward then suffered another injury that kept him out until March of this year.

Ward is trying to make up for lost time. He's already had two fights in 2016, and he returns for a third next month - when he challenges WBO/WBA/IBF world champion Sergey Kovalev (30-0, 26KOs) on November 19th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Roach believes the layoffs have affected Ward as a fighter and he doesn't believe, based on Ward's last two performances, that he has the same abilities that were displayed back at super middleweight.

Kovalev-Ward is one of the most anticipated fights of 2016. Roach is very fond of both fighters and resisted the temptation to make a prediction on the outcome, although he felt Kovalev looked really bad in his July decision win over the very durable Isaac Chilemba.

"It's a tough a fight [with Kovalev]. With Ward, I think the layoff really hurt him. I don't think he's quite the fighter that he used to be. Kovalev is really strong, a good puncher but he looked like sh*t in his last fight too. I think I like both guys so much that I'm not going to pick one or the other. I think it's a really good," Roach said.