By Keith Idec

It appears Andre Ward’s retirement talk is as much about negotiating as anything.

Ward told TMZ Sports that he just wants to be treated as the winner of his light heavyweight title fight against Sergey Kovalev as the two sides try to come to an agreement on when and where they’ll fight again.

“It’s about getting the right deal,” Ward told TMZ Sports recently. “It’s about putting myself in the right situation. I’ve earned it, you know?”

When asked by TMZ’s unidentified interviewer if he wanted $10 million or $7 million to fight Kovalev again, Ward wouldn’t disclose the purse that would satisfy him. Ward made a $5 million purse for their first fight, which Ward won by unanimous decision, 114-113 on all three scorecards, on November 19 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“I don’t get involved in that, man,” Ward said. “That’s Business 101. You don’t get involved in that stuff publicly.”

The 32-year-old Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) told fighthype.com earlier this month that he’s considering retirement, rather than participating in the immediate rematch against Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) to which he is contractually obligated. Ward scoffed at the idea that he can’t beat Kovalev again following their highly competitive, rough 12-round battle last month.

“You guys saw my last fight,” Ward said. “I beat the guy that nobody said I could beat. So I just wanna, moving forward, I wanna act like we beat the guy that nobody said we could beat. As long as everybody acts like that, I think we should be fine.”

Their first fight generated more than $3.3 million in ticket revenue, but didn’t do well on pay-per-view (slightly more than 160,000 buys).

Ward seemed less inclined to seriously consider retirement in this video, despite that the 2004 Olympic gold medalist left that door slightly open.

“I think I said it all in the comment that I made [to fighthype.com],” Ward said. “It’s simple, man. I’ve been doing this a long time and we’ve just gotta see. I mean, the rematch is something that obviously we’re entertaining and it’s something that should take place. Because you know, Kovalev is making a lot of excuses. Some of the stuff is laughable, man. It was a close fight, but it was a close fight that I won. And if it’s right, man, let’s do it. If not, you know …”

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