Andre Ward will go down in boxing history as being one of the best of all time.
Ward, known as ‘S.O.G’ or ‘Son of God’, remained unbeaten throughout the duration of his professional career, which began back in 2017 after he became an Olympic Champion.
He reigned as the unified world super-middleweight champion between 2009 and 2015, defeating the likes of Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch and Chad Dawson during his campaign at 168lbs.
Ward would then make the move up to light-heavyweight where he would beat retired Russian powerhouse Sergey Kovalev in their first encounter in 2016, capturing the unified WBA, WBO and IBF titles at 175lbs.
The American was successful once again in their rematch during the summer of 2017, stopping Kovalev during the eighth round of their bout in Las Vegas. This would be Ward’s final career outing, announcing his retirement from boxing several months later.
In an interview with Fight Hype, whilst discussing the ongoing feud between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Roy Jones Jr, Ward didn’t hesitate to name the latter as his ‘favourite fighter of all time’ as he claims he tried to ’emulate’ the style Jones.
“I ain’t getting into that man, y’all know how I feel about all three of them but Roy was my favourite fighter of all time. I tried to emulate all three of them, Bernard, Floyd and Roy but Roy is my all time favourite fighter, that’s it.”
Jones is often credited with being one of the greatest fighters of all time, proving his dominance during the 1990s when he won world titles at middleweight, super-middleweight and light-heavyweight respectively, defeating the likes of Bernard Hopkins, James Toney and Mike McCallum. He would also capture a heavyweight championship.
Jones, now 56, has been open about the fact that he still wants to return to the ring.
