Comments Thread For: Stevenson's Promoter Reacts To Claims By Andre Ward's Coach

[kingstip9]

its a shame ward didn't fight stevenson. i feel he would take away that left hand and really frustrate stevenson. well, i guess well never know

[daggum]

That man told no lies. Kovalev side was tough for Ward to negotiate with. Remember he was talking about retiring after the last fight. Stevenson's side ask for the date of the last Purse bid to be pushed up and Duva and her team backed out after requesting the Kovalev be the #1 contender by the WBC and guaranteeing him a 50/50 split which was unheard of before this. There is no money co promoting with Duva. Look what happened with the Barerra and Beterbiev fight. Barerra could have fought Kovalev in his next fight but they low balled him and they have the same promoter.

Also the last fight Ward talked about seriously was Bellew before his retirement, and Stevenson stopped him. The point is these guys fight for the money at a certain point in their careers.

uhh you dont know what you are even saying. all the terms were already agreed upon for the rematch. it was ward who refused to honor them and was willing to retire instead. kovalev's team wanted the fight so badly they gave him the entire guaranteed purse for the fight(plus his promoters subsidy) while kovalev only got portions of the ppv and live gate. the one being tough was clearly ward.

[deanrw]

I have no idea if this rumor was true or not but this is what I saw someone post on Twitter immediately after the rematch. Someone said that "Andre Ward is shopping for a new promoter, in particular Bob Arum, after it appears his relationship with Roc Nation is coming to an end."

I also cannot remember who said it, but I did read it. If it is true maybe Ward and Arum could not come together on financial terms? Andre probably would have stuck around for a giant payday, but in the end he knew that was not coming.

[Dboi Statmaster]

Hard to argue with that man. Ward is ducking Adonis, real talk.

Ward hasn't lost a fight since he was 12 years old. Who else can say that in boxing?? I'll wait.. Disrespectful to call him scared. No disrespect to you I love reading comments on this site some insightful stuff really I sometimes like the comments more than the articles but sometimes it's just sickening how comments are about somebody ducking somebody nobody and I mean absolutely nobody gets a fair shake. From Mayweather hate on him. PacMan hate on him. Ward hate on him. Kovalev hate on him. Adonis Stevenson hate on him. Errol Spence hate on him. Terence Crawford hate on him. Keith Thurman hate on him. Mikey Garcia hate on him. Lomachenco hate on him. Rigo hate on him. GGG hate on him. Canelo hate on him. I can go on and on the point is no matter the fighter the hate is just so strong it's literally impossible for everyone to just consider you a great champion there's always insults and disrespect but hey just my 2 cents and what's that worth right.. Let the hate continue smh..

[N/A]

not at al because that's not what happened. Everyone knows that Stevenson took himself to showtime at al haymons request to avoid that fight.

The facts do not support your position. HBO had the last right of refusal. It was Haymon's job to get his client the biggest offer possible and all HBO had to do was match and Stevenson would be contractually bound to HBO. Showtime offered Stevenson a reasonable sum to face Hopkins (who at the time was considered the tougher fight than Kovalev) and Stevenson accepted. Then all HBO had to do was match the offer and Stevenson would have been forced to fight Kovalev. HBO let Stevenson walk and let Stevenson-Kovalev dissolve over 50k. That was not Stevenson avoiding anything. That was HBO not wanting to spend market value for the fight.

Later on, Kovalev petitioned the WBC to be allowed to fight for the diamond title and to become Stevenson's mandatory. The WBC said okay.

The WBC ordered a purse bid for Stevenson vs Kovalev and Stevenson said no problem. Whoever offers the most money, I will gladly fight Kovalev. Kovalev's HBO contract had expired at the time.

HBO offered Kovalev a new contract on the condition that he pull out of the Stevenson fight. Kovalev refused to honor the deal with the WBC to fight Stevenson and vacated his diamond title to duck Stevenson.

We're not criticizing Kovalev for it. He did what he thought was best for his career. But it's on the record, plain as day, that Stevenson & Kovalev were ordered to fight each other, at Kovalev's request, and as soon as Stevenson said yes, Kovalev changed his mind.

This is all easily verifiable public information. If you were not aware of these facts, we'd be happy to supply links to reputable sources. Let us know if you need any help verifying this information.

[buge]

just let Ward have 100% US ppv

[Dr.Cool]

Both of them are right. Haymon isn't going to let Adonis get straight ****d like Duva let Kov. Kov was crying before the second fight at how little he was making. And what Adonis says is true, if it was 50-50 of the profit, Ward wouldn't have gotten close to what he ended up making. A fight with Adonis would probably do a little better, just because of Ward being a little more well known. It would probably do about the same as Kov fights really, and unless Ward is getting three fourths of the purse, he would make considerably less.

Stevenson isn't going to give Ward 80% of the purse and Ward isn't going to fight for half of what he got against Kov. Against someone just as dangerous as Kov. Would love to see a Ward-Stevenson fight, but it isn't going to happen.

[Bobby Shaw]

Yvon Michel, promoter for WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, has hired back at the recent statements that were made by Virgil Hunter, the head trainer of IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight champion Andre Ward (32-0, 16 KOs) - who two weeks ago announced his retirement from the sport. According to Hunter, there was simply no money in a fight with Stevenson. Ward had made high seven figure paydays for both Sergey Kovalev bouts and wasn't willing to take a step back in the pay department when it came to Stevenson or anyone else.
[Click Here To Read More]

So what's there to disagree? Hunter says there was no money in the fight and the Stevenson guy says it's because Rock Nation didn't want to subsidise. He says Ward was overpaid. The thing is he was paid and wanted money which could not be generated in the Stevenson fight. Stevenson is a good fighter no doubt and very explosive with good ring iq. We however know Ward has a way of neutralising fighters so we will never know who would have won but the fight didn't make cents.

[rrayvez]

The facts do not support your position. HBO had the last right of refusal. It was Haymon's job to get his client the biggest offer possible and all HBO had to do was match and Stevenson would be contractually bound to HBO. Showtime offered Stevenson a reasonable sum to face Hopkins (who at the time was considered the tougher fight than Kovalev) and Stevenson accepted. Then all HBO had to do was match the offer and Stevenson would have been forced to fight Kovalev. HBO let Stevenson walk and let Stevenson-Kovalev dissolve over 50k. That was not Stevenson avoiding anything. That was HBO not wanting to spend market value for the fight.

Later on, Kovalev petitioned the WBC to be allowed to fight for the diamond title and to become Stevenson's mandatory. The WBC said okay.

The WBC ordered a purse bid for Stevenson vs Kovalev and Stevenson said no problem. Whoever offers the most money, I will gladly fight Kovalev. Kovalev's HBO contract had expired at the time.

HBO offered Kovalev a new contract on the condition that he pull out of the Stevenson fight. Kovalev refused to honor the deal with the WBC to fight Stevenson and vacated his diamond title to duck Stevenson.

We're not criticizing Kovalev for it. He did what he thought was best for his career. But it's on the record, plain as day, that Stevenson & Kovalev were ordered to fight each other, at Kovalev's request, and as soon as Stevenson said yes, Kovalev changed his mind.

This is all easily verifiable public information. If you were not aware of these facts, we'd be happy to supply links to reputable sources. Let us know if you need any help verifying this information.

1. "Let us know if you need any help verifying this information" . Calm down guy. You created a profile on boxing scene a month ago. You're not the chief editor for ring magazine. 2. Here's a quote from. Hbo when Stevenson left for showtime "An HBO source said Haymon asked for 40 percent more than HBO had agreed to pay Stevenson. The same source also said that Haymon told the network he would only negotiate a one-fight deal, for Stevenson-Fonfara, and wouldn't talk about a potential bout with Kovalev even if HBO had agreed to the 40 percent increase." if you know boxing as you claim, that is 1000% something haymon would do. 3. Yes there was a purse bid set by wbc, but you fail to mention how main events had no shot of winning that purse bid and when they lost, showtime would have had complete control of the fight. Yet another problem caused by Stevenson choosing to leave hbo for showtime. Sure there may have been financial incentive but, showtime had no real top fighters to offer Stevenson. That's why kovalev surpassed Stevenson in every reputable lhw ranking because he was the one who got the Hopkins and pascal fights, not Stevenson, and he was the one who took on the better competition while Stevenson beat on the fonfaras and bikas of the division.

[shaheed1972]

I would also like to know the answer to this. Was it like a secret Western imperial political Nixonian thing? Did someone in some high up place want to prove America was still superior to Russia, so they funneled whatever money was necessary to make the fight through David Rockafeller Nation promotions to pay both Andre Ward and the refs and judges, in order to ensure that in the biggest boxing match between an American and a Russian in who knows how many years, the American would win?

I mean, if it wasn't some political thing, or some ideological thing, what else could explain it? Businessmen aren't in the business of losing millions of dollars just to see an athlete perform, especially not one as boring as Andre Ward. Businessmen never give millions of dollars away like that in a contract unless it's not truly about business. They would only do that if it was actually about something else more important to them than money, like politics, or ideology. So if some journalist could look into this situation more, I think there must be an interesting story there beneath the surface.

Business men invest in the future. They probably invested in the 1st fight thinking it would be a good fight or a potential showcase for Ward. If the fight would generate a buzz around Ward then he could generate more in the future. Unfortunately for Rocnation it didn't work. The rematch went in reverse & they lost even more money. I think the reason for Ward's retirement is they couldn't make a fight to generate the income he wanted. He priced himself out of a career.