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JOHN DAVID JACKSON GIVES DETAILED ANALYSIS ON ANDRE WARD; INSISTS HE MAKES "3 MAJOR MISTAKES" AND KOVALEV NEED ONLY EXPOSE ONE

By Percy Crawford | July 28, 2016
JOHN DAVID JACKSON GIVES DETAILED ANALYSIS ON ANDRE WARD; INSISTS HE MAKES

"You definitely don't approach Andre Ward like he's just any fighter. Listen, I say things about Andre Ward, and they weren't bad things, just certain things that he doesn't do right. But at the end of the day and when it's all said and done, Andre Ward deserves much praise and much respect and I give him that. When you go your entire amateur career without a loss, that itself speaks volumes. In amateur boxing, you might get a bad decision somewhere, but to be undefeated, that right there speaks volumes for him," stated world-class trainer John David Jackson, who spoke in-depth about the highly-anticipated showdown between his fighter, unified light heavweight champion Sergey Kovalev, and undefeated former world champion Andre Ward. Check out what else he had to say about Ward and the fight!

JOHN DAVID JACKSON ON ANDRE WARD:

And then he did what he was supposed to do and cleaned out the 168-pound division. I have the utmost respect for Andre. I say things to get in his head, but when it's all said and done, I give him all of the credit he deserves. He's done what he's supposed to do and he's done things that I haven't done. He won a Gold Medal. I didn't win a Gold Medal, so I gotta give credit where credit's due. He's very dangerous and he's a dangerous fight for Sergey and if he's not on top of his game and 100% ready for it, it's going to be tough. And I let him know, this is not the fight that you want to play with. He has a suspect chin, the power is not there, he really can't hurt you with power; he might try to keep you off a little bit. He's a better fighter than he gets credit for, but if you take Andre Ward lightly just a little bit, he'll get you.It's definitely a dangerous fight for us and in no shape, form, or fashion will I leave one stone unturned. This fight here, we gotta be at the top of our game. This fight makes or breaks you. If you beat Andre, you move on up. If you lose to this guy, you were just another guy that was a star for a moment and he brought you back down to earth.  

Andre is going to be Andre. They didn't pick Brand because they thought he was a killer. This is a fight to knock a little bit more of the rust off of him and get him in better condition because he hadn't fought in awhile. The last fight he had was against Barrera, but before that, he hadn't fought in awhile. They are going to try and get some of the rust off of him and if they can get a few rounds in, they're going to get it in, but I don't think Brand is a guy that's really going to test you. And even if he does, Andre is good at what Andre does and Andre knows how to frustrate people. He knows how to make them look bad and control people using that jab. So there are certain things he knows how to do as a fighter that eliminates what a fighter can do to him. And in the end, his style overwhelms their style. So I'm not so worried about this fight with Brand with him getting upset or hurt or injured. I think it's the right fight that they had to take to move Andre forward. I don't think he [Alexander Brand] is being paid that much, so they had to get a guy to accommodate that and not be crying about he wants more money. It's the right fight for Andre for him to do what he needs to do and they may have wanted somebody tougher, but they probably couldn't have gotten anybody for what they got who they have now. I think this is more or less a fight to get some of the rust off of him.

Sergey fought Bernard Hopkins and that was the fight for him because that was a gentleman who is a future Hall of Famer; he is a legend now, a living legend, because he's still in the game doing his thing. So the fact that he was able to dissect Bernard and beat him the way that he did, fighting Andre Ward won't be...honestly, the magnitude of the fight may not be as big as the Hopkins fight. Bernard was 49 at the time, but he was still beating young fighters and he's a legend in the game. I won't call Andre great because his career is not over yet, but he's good at what he does. He's cleaned out a division. He deserves whatever ranking he's got and position he has in the sport, and all of the accolades he gets, he deserves. I just don't think the fight is as big as the Hopkins fight, but it's big enough to where it merits the attention it's going to get. It's big because he is undefeated and he's a warrior and the magnitude of the fight is there, but for us, I don't think it's bigger than Hopkins, but because it's an undefeated, young kid, it's going to be drummed up bigger. But I think Sergey is ready for that because he had the Hopkins fight. And that fight was big enough to have the attention of all of the reporters coming up to him and talking to him and he's taking pictures with everybody. It got him used to people wanting to be around him and sometimes the press saying the same old things and asking the same questions over and over. So he's beyond that. Luckily he had that fight and now this fight here, even though the magnitude to the public might be a little bit bigger, he'll be fine because he went through that with Bernard.

Andre's never lost, so Sergey has to come out and establish his pace early and make Andre fight his fight early. He has to let Andre know right away, you're not going to dominate me the way you dominate everybody else. We're not going to play your game. Listen, Andre's good, but Andre makes three major mistakes, and I won't say what they are, but he makes three major mistakes and if Sergey can expose any one of those three, it's lights out! He does three things wrong and no one has corrected it and at this point, they may not be able to correct it, but if he does that against Sergey, trust me, Sergey's going to jump out on him. And if Sergey hits Andre with that power early like he did Bernard, it's going to definitely put Andre on the defense. That puts that doubt like, it's true what they say about this guy; he can punch and now I gotta really be evasive because I don't want to get clipped like that again. Darnell Boone dropped him and somebody else dropped him and he was hurt. You gotta understand, if Sergey catches him flush like that, he's not going to be just hurt. Sergey is not letting him off the hook. If he gets him early, he's going to try and get him out of there. One thing Sergey has to do when he does that is be patient and take his time. You get him hurt, don't try and jump on him and hit him with a couple of shots. Just take your time, sit down on your punches, and hit him with clean shots and then you'll get him out. But listen, it's easy for me to say that, but Andre is very difficult to fight because he's good at what he's done and he's done it for so long and I take my hat off to him. Anybody that was undefeated as an amateur and done the same thing as a pro and cleared a division out, hey, I gotta give you the respect that you deserve, but I just feel I have the fighter that can nullify all that if he does the things that he needs to do once he gets in the ring with this kid.



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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