Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
The cloudy details how Andre Ward ducked the Gennady Golovkin fight have finally been revealed…
A boxing insider close to the situation cut through the propaganda and media manipulation that was calculated carefully by the Ward side…
“I always hate to comment on anything related to Ward as it seems to fuel his fire in the media regarding GGG.”
“The facts were that when Ward was scheduled to fight in Ontario, I mentioned to HBO that GGG would take that fight with Ward at 168.”
“The response I got back from HBO was that Ward was coming off of an injury to his shoulder and preferred to fight Edwin Rodriguez, who was naturally a much easier fight for him.”
“After that, GGG continued to fight on HBO, knocking out pretty much everyone that was willing to fight him and selling out arenas, while Ward was embroiled in legal battles with Dan Goossen.”
“It was quickly clear that GGG had surpassed Ward’s popularity in the US from his activity and fan friendly style with both the fans and media, neither of which Ward was known for.”
“There was some tension from Ward side when he saw GGG’s popularity, which I never understood as they were two different weight divisions.”
“GGG was focused on unifying all the middleweight belts and we finally were able to get David Lemieux to agree to a unification fight in Madison Square Garden. Once we announced the Lemieux fight, I get an unsolicited offer from Dave Itskowitch at Roc Nation making some strange offer of GGG fighting Ward at 168 with a 50/50 deal.”
“I responded that the fight with Lemieux was just announced, which was common knowledge as we had just done a full day of media interviews.”
“HBO gave me the heads up that Ward will be making an (bluff) offer to GGG, but Ward’s real intention was moving to 175 to fight Kovalev, which is exactly what happened. Kovalev was a much easier fight for Ward, I don’t know why he was compelled to tell the media that GGG turned down an offer to fight when everyone knew we just announced Lemieux on HBO PPV headlining Madison Square Garden, which turned out to be a sold out show.”
So there you have it. Andre Ward used media manipulation and deception “to convince his small but loud fanbase that he made an offer and GGG ducked him.”
It all makes you wonder: How many other fighters like Andre Ward used media manipulation, deception and bluff offers to trick the public and media into believing something contrary to the actual truth? And for how many years or decades have fighters and their handlers been using deception, fraud and hoaxes to protect a fighter from threats they fear?
