Andre Ward on Building Mental Toughness

You know, one of the things that always stood out to me about you was how composed you are and you rarely get emotional. You know, even like, I remember when you fought Karl Froch. Karl Froch hit you clearly after the bell, clearly in a fight you were dominating and you just went like this. He just said, you didn't even get mad. You didn't go fuck you. You did nothing. You took that punch and you just went, turned and just went back to your corner like it never happened. Like you just, just wiped it clean. That's not going to benefit me to get upset here. How did you develop that kind of composure? I think one thing that my dad and Virg did really well for me and my brother, Jonathan, who boxed with me for many years, they gave us mental reps. Like, like I'd be driving in the car or riding in the car with Virg or my dad and they'd be telling me, listen, man, when you get in that ring, when you spar today, man, listen, that dude try to hit you low. You make sure you get your respect. You don't accept this in the ring. Like this is, these are things that I was taught. I was like, I was taught to be a warrior at a young age and oftentimes trainers will train the body, but they don't train the mind. So plus, and also life experiences, things that I've been through with my mom, my dad and just, just all that kind of stuff. Plus my internal makeup, the way, you know, God made me, all of that combined. I never had to be the loudest talker in the room because I knew that all the, all the stuff, the real stuff is in me. It's not on me. So I'm the type that you hit me like that. I'm a smile at you. I got you. We got another round of fights, sir. So my, my, my anger, my, my get back. I'm gonna get it within the confines of these rules, but you're going to feel me. Kovalev knocked me down. All right, bro. I got you. I smile. You're embarrassed. You're mad. You're frustrated. You're everything. And then that eight second, that eight counts you're getting, you feel all every emotion you could possibly feel. And inside I knew like, now you're going to have to knock me out because I'm coming to get it. So some of it is innate. Some of it was taught. And then throughout the course of my life and career, I was, I was given the mentor reps. Hey son, watch him right here. Watch how someone so pushed his hand down and he got right back in his face, not out of the ring, but in the ring, teaching me and showing me and highlighting what a strong mind was and what a weak mind was. And typically the weak mind was the loudest talker. Now don't get me wrong. I love a guy that can talk to talk and back it up. It's not a lot of those in the game though. MMA or boxing. So I'm afraid of the guy who's not saying very much. The guy that's hard to read. The guy we're trying to figure out, man, is he, what's up with him? That's the guy I'm concerned about. The loudest talker. I used to get excited when guys used to just go over the top. I'd be like, man, this dude, I got him. I got him. Keep talking. I got him. Same thing with Kova Liv. Fought the first fight. Clothes could have went either way. And from the time the first fight ended until the time the second fight started, I learned more about that guy in that period of time than I did in any round that I fought him in. He said so much. And I was poking holes in it. I was quiet and I was just sitting back and everybody was misreading the silence. Oh, Lord scaredy. He's not going to check the remount. I'm just sitting there like, you know, taking notes, man. This guy, keep talking. Keep talking. He was just saying things where I was like, this is a weakness. Now if he would have said, look, I felt like I won that fight. I felt like they robbed me. I'm coming back to get it. And then when silent, when dark now, I'm like, man, this dude is getting ready. We got we got to tighten up. Kept talking, man. Sometimes I talk and I reveal a little bit too much about yourself. What did you see from the talking? Just excuse making. He didn't give me any credit. He started. I mean, if it wasn't the written, I'm exaggerating. But just for the case of emphasis, you know, if the ring lights weren't too bright, the referee was against him. If it wasn't the referee, it was the judges like he never owned up to anything that he did wrong. But if I go back to the research that we did about him before we even fought on the first time that line double what we heard, the guy, he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't take ownership of anything. He blames everybody. Anytime anything goes wrong. He's a front runner. He's a bully. He's this. He's that that confirmed everything we had heard. So you're the crusher. You're Sergey Kovalev. You knocked me down in the second round, not the 11th, the second round. You were supposed to finish me, sir. The fact that we're even talking about a fight being close, the fact that I finished the fight, that's bothering you. That that that that's a chip that that's that's chipping away at this whole crusher thing that you've been that you've been living on. And he couldn't handle it. And instead of owning it, he blamed John David Jackson. He blamed this guy, blamed that guy. That's a sign of weakness, man. Not strength. Were you impressed with him getting through the eighth round against yard? And his last fight, I wouldn't say impressed. I mean, listen, he hasn't gotten where he's gotten by not being tough. So generally speaking, he's tough. He's a tough individual to a point. I wasn't surprised. I was just I was like, dude, if you ever if a fighter has ever been saved by the bail, you were just saved by the bail. Like you were a punch, a punch or two away from getting, you know, getting stopped in your home country and in your home, your home city, hometown. That was the only kind of like jarring part of it. And then my next star was Kenny recover. Is he going to be able to physically recover, then psychologically come back and try to get back with your took from him in that round? And he did that. So he showed me that he still got something in the tank. But he's he was the right way to say it. He's fading fast. Like he's fading right before our eyes. He doesn't have the reaction. He doesn't have a still very good. He still he still can beat a lot of guys, but he's fading fast. If there's a Canelo fight on the table, I think you should take it and write off in the sunset, man, go enjoy your life. Well, it was interesting how you exposed him in the second fight because the body shots, the body shots have been a weakness like since then. Everybody is kind of compromised his body. They've found what you found out. Is that something you knew going into the second fight or did you know it in the first fight? Like when we knew that in the first fight, did you problem with me in the in the first fight? First couple of rounds, I was thinking too much and this dude came out fast. So I'm thinking like I'm trying to get my range and he's like boom, boom, boom. And it's not that he's like this crazy power puncher. It's just that he's sharp and he's accurate. So I'm like catching shots. I'm getting hit with jabs. I'm trying to figure he didn't give me a chance to think. And then boom, I got hit with the right hand. And I'm like, I said, bro. So that was the best thing that could have happened to me, like I said earlier. And then you saw the body attack get implemented. So that was always the game plan. I won the second fight with everything that I did in the first fight. Like we unlocked the code in the first fight. But people couldn't get past the knockdown. Right. They failed to look at the, you know, the next 10 rounds.