"Brand wasn't our first choice by a long shot. I mean, we tried to get several opponents. Cleverly, [Erik] Skoglund, they just didn't want to fight," stated world-class trainer Virgil Hunter, who shared his thoughts on Alexander Brand, the man who undefeated former world champion Andre Ward will face when he returns to the ring on August 6 in Oakland, California. According to Hunter, Ward has had the exact same difficulties that middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev had when it came to finding an opponent. Check out what else he had to say as Hunter explains how they finally settled for Alexander Brand.
VIRGIL HUNTER EXPLAINS SELECTION OF ALEXANDER BRAND AS ANDRE WARD'S NEXT OPPONENT:
"We're in the same dilemma that supposedly Golovkin's in and supposedly Kovalev's in. Skoglund, who is number 5 or number 6, something like that, they agreed to the terms, but then when we told them that VADA was involved, they backed out of the fight. So what is that saying? They had agreed to all the terms and then backed out of the fight. Cleverly and everybody else was pricing themselves out. There was nobody left. We had to get somebody. They kept putting pressure on us for a deadline and this and that; that wasn't our first choice. We couldn't get an opponent last time, but we went to Barrera. He was the only one. Look, the time before last, when we had a layoff, we come out of the garage at 168 and we fought number one, Edwin Rodriguez. Next time, as a light heavyweight, we come out of the garage and we fight number one, Barrera. So what are they saying?
I don't know why people would say anything because the ones who they say have a hard time getting an opponent, we're willing to fight them. Kovalev got a fight with Chilemba because they're promoted by the same company, but he didn't have nobody to fight. This kid Joe Smith, who knocked out Fonfara, he would've been a good fight, but we wouldn't have been able to get him because of Joe DeGuardia's lawsuit against Roc Nation. So who are we going to fight? Alexander Brand is way more formidable than Dominic Wade. We were willing to fight the other guy [Golovkin] when he didn't have nobody to fight, but they didn't wanna fight."
[ Follow Ben Thompson on Twitter @fighthype ]