When we first sat down with Andre earlier this year to talk about a game plan, Andre’s the type of guy, economics permitting, who would like to fight three or four times a year. Unfortunately, four times isn’t realistic for the economics of an Andre Ward fight. But we’d like to see him back before the end of the year obviously and we’re starting to talk now between him and his team as to what direction he’d like to go next and what he wants in terms of weight.
We haven’t had any meaningful conversations with Andre’s management about how he felt and what he wants to do next. There are two obvious paths that can be taken for Andre,if he decides to stay at 168lbs, a fight with Golovkin is something that becomes interesting and the target. If he decides to go up then you’re looking at Kovalev as the end game of moving up to 175lbs. So there are two paths and I’ve said publicly that I’ve spoken to Tom Loffler and I’ve spoken to Kathy Duva about the general, broad strokes as to whether this is something you’re interested in and what you think of the timing, what’s the roadmap. I’ve had those conversations with each of them and it really becomes a question of how does Andre feel at fighting at 172lbs, where does he gauge himself in terms of a big fight like a Kovalev or Golovkin.
Andre’s in a great position, similar to Miguel, that he gets to say this is the direction that I’m going in and this is the fight and let’s fight.