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TEDDY ATLAS ON ANDRE WARD SITUATION: "I HATE TO SEE HIM ON THE SIDELINES"

By Percy Crawford | December 17, 2014
TEDDY ATLAS ON ANDRE WARD SITUATION:

"Athletes, and particularly fighters, have a small window of opportunity in their workplace and their profession and you hate to see any of that window wasted or lost. I hated to see some of that window lost with Muhammad Ali, where it was taken away from him. I think the big difference here is I don't know if it was taken away. I think part of this is Andre's decision," stated world-class trainer and ESPN commentator Teddy Atlas, who shared his thoughts on the contractual dispute that currently has super middleweight king Andre Ward sitting on the sidelines during the prime of his career. Check out what else he had to say on the situation during a recent conversation with FightHype.com.

ATLAS ON WARD:

"So people will choose not to speak that casually about it because of whatever. They have their own agenda to think about when they say something and rather than speak on what's in front of them, some people are gonna say things based on what they want their relationship to be or based on what their future would be with somebody involved with that fighter or promoter. I can only say what my real thoughts are and not controlled by anything else or influenced by anything else. I like Andre. I called his fights in the Olympics. I said before he is a terrific human being and I have him as the second best fighter in the world and I like what he does outside of the ring. I like what he stands for and I like what he does in the ring. I like the way he behaves himself in the ring, but unlike Muhammad Ali,who had part of his career taken away, Ali didn't have any say about it. Andre is choosing to be out. Whether it's a contractual situation or business situation with his promoter, he's made a choice to also stay inactive during this part of it while he's dealing with the things that he doesn't agree with. He's been inactive on his doing and his decision on how to deal with this. That's part of how he's chosen to deal with it. He hasn't been inactive for years, which thank goodness he hasn't."

"Obviously this thing will come to an end. It won't be a situation like when Ali fought it out where he was out for over 3 years; this will not represent that kind of inactivity at the end of the day, but it's still inactivity and still taking away from that window that I speak of that is only so large and only so big. And whatever is taken away from that window, you can't get back to it. Your career is only so long and if you lose parts of your career, you lose it. Your prime as an athlete is only a certain amount of time and anytime you don't perform during that length of time, you're losing out on that opportunity to state your case of how good you are. You want to be able to perform during that time when people are saying you are in your prime because that's when fighters generally give their best performance. I hate to see that in fighters for a lot of reasons. I want to see the best that I can see from Andre Ward. I want to see how special he can be and look back on it later and see how it compares to other great fighters, and if he's not in the ring, we're not gonna be able to see that or make those comparisons."

"Also, you want to see him be able to reap the benefits of all the hard work he's put in his whole life when those benefits are best to be reaped and to make the most money and make the most of the opportunities for his family and himself. I want to see him make the best of these opportunities when he can be the best that he can be. I hate to see him on the sidelines, but again, we make choices in life and that's part of the choice that he felt he needed to make and part of the sacrifice that he's ready to make with that choice."



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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