Virgil Hunter: “I have Carl Froch rated above Andre Ward, and until Andre Ward beats
by Geoffrey Ciani (Exclusive Interview by Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) - Last week’s 132nd edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio (brought to you by CWH Promotions) featured an exclusive interview with highly regarded trainer Virgil Hunter who is currently preparing WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KOs) to square off against WBC champion Carl Froch (28-1, 20 KOs) in a unification bout that will also be for the Super Six championship. Hunter spoke about the Super Six, and also provided opinions on various other aspects of the boxing landscape including Lucian Bute, Wladimir Klitschko’s victory over David Haye, Mike Dallas Junior’s controversial loss to Mauricio Herrera, Bernard Hopkins becoming the oldest boxer to win a major world championship, and more. Here is what Virgil had to say:
His views on the progression of the Super Six tournament and the fact that Andre Ward has advanced all the way to the Finals:
“Well I think tournament’s progressed in the way everyone expected, particularly with all the things that went on during the duration of the tournament. I don’t think that you could ask for a better conclusion. We worked hard to win this tournament and we intend to win the tournament, and we’re now at the point where we have one more obstacle to overcome.”
His views of Andre Ward’s progress during the tournament and the fact that he has overcome the odds:
“Well the odds were before the action, so you know you kind of just have to accept that for the way it is. I knew Andre could beat Mikkel Kessler before the tournament started. I had been studying Kessler for quite awhile and it boils down to styles. We possess several styles and we knew we had two or three that he wouldn’t be able to cope with, and that’s not taking anything away from Kessler. He’s a great champion, but we wouldn’t have entered this tournament if we didn’t intend to win it. We didn’t think we could win it. We didn’t hope we could win it. We intend to win it and we knew we were going to win it, so that was the whole point of getting into the tournament. We didn’t just want to belong. We wanted to come out on top and that was the goal, and that’s where we’re headed.”
On whether he views the matchup between Andre Ward and Carl Froch as the perfect way to conclude the Super Six:
“I think the path that both fighters have taken, absolutely it is the ultimate grand finale so to speak. Froch has proven his meddle, I think Andre has proven his, and it shouldn’t be any other way. That’s not to discount Glen and Allan Green who came into the tournament as replacements. But they were the original six, so I think it’s only fitting that out of that original six the last two would be Froch and Andre.”
On criticisms of the opponents Ward was matched up with following his fight with Kessler to reach the Super Six Final:
“Well I mean how do you take those criticisms? Mikkel Kessler was a champion. Allan Green was a high rated contender. Arthur Abraham was a champion, and he was actually a favorite to win it. Sakio Bika is someone nobody wants to fight, and we beat him at his own game. Criticism is part of the sport and we accept that hand-in-hand. It doesn’t make a difference what you’re going to do. No matter what you do you’re going to get criticized, so all you can do is take one fight at a time, win that fight, and move on to the next one. Andre is the only one in this tournament that’s had two replacements. We didn’t ask for that, and out of those two replacements he didn’t pick his opponents. He didn’t pick Allan Green, Showtime picked Allan Green. He didn’t pick Sakio Bika, Showtime picked Sakio Bika. So we never complained. We could have looked for a lesser fight. I really believe after Andre Dirrell’s unfortunate accident we took Sakio Bika. It just comes with the territory. It’s just the way it is, so you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”
On whether he is at all worried that success will make it more difficult for Andre Ward to stay motivated and hungry for success:
“No, not at all because I don’t see at this point where success has been so relevant to Andre’s career that he would even take the mindset that hey, you know what I’ve done it all and there’s not much more to do, where there are no more big fights where he’ll be less motivated or something of that nature. Just going back to what Jenna said, just the criticism alone is something that he has no control over. That’s enough to motivate him continuously. He has his dreams, he has his goals in boxing, and until he hangs them up he’ll be motivated. It’s just the type of kid that he is. He will never be in a situation where he will not be motivated, because when the tournament is over they will have somebody else for him to fight, or there will be someone else where they say maybe this guy will be a good test, or maybe that guy will be a good test. The way Andre is doing it right now, no one seems to think he’s being tested because of the way he’s doing it. So if there is a test out there, we welcome it and we’re ready for it.”
His views on Andre Ward’s development and progression as a fighter from the time they first started working with each other when Ward was an amateur:
“Well I think one of the major things is that we made the right decision to allow him to develop as a professional fighter. I don’t think people understand that when you are a top amateur and you start at nine years old, and you go all the way to the Olympics, to fight the computer in the point system it takes a different kind of style to win. So you have to take the professional out and you have to put more or less defensive type of boxing in and he has to understand how to touch those targets, he has to understand what the judges are looking for. It’s not like when Leonard and everyone else was boxing. They had an opportunity to develop as a pro as an amateur. They wore no head gear. They fought three three-minute rounds with card scoring. So a lot of things were scored back in those days that isn’t scored now. So the fighter has to make an adjustment and when you have a fighter who’s been doing this for ten years, all of a sudden to expect him to be this type of fighter is really unreasonable. I think we went about it right. His development has come in increments like they’re supposed to. I believe Andre could have won a title at 23 years old just on youth and energy alone, and raise up to the occasion in the moment. But then what happens after that? You have to continuously fight and defend and hold off men. So we wanted to wait until he was a man. We wanted to see how he developed as a man, and when he was ready and I decided that he was ready, he was ready for anybody! Believe it or not, before the tournament started we had contacted Froch, we had contacted Kessler, we had contacted Bute, and they all turned us down. So the tournament provided the right platform for us and gave us the opportunity, but when he fought Miranda he was ready for anybody.”
On whether he agrees with Nazim Richard’s claim that we have not even seen close to the best of Andre Ward:
“He’s very accurate in his assessment and the reason why is, and I’ll go back to the Olympics one more time. When Andre won the Gold Medal in the light heavyweight division he was really a middleweight. He had made a pact with his cousin DonYil Livingston that they wouldn’t fight in the same weight class. So DonYil Livingston qualified at 165 and Andre moved up to give him an opportunity at 165. At no time in the Olympics in the 178 pound division did he even weigh 170 pounds, and he was fighting guys 6’6”/6’5”, two-time world champions. He fought three world champions and one Silver Medalist to win the Gold Medal. So again the adjustments that he had to make in order to win this suggested that when he turned pro, that we take our time with him. It would take time for him to move over to the pro aspects of boxing and become a solid pro. He’s just now becoming a solid pro. His IQ and his intellect has been professional, but his performance and his attributes in terms of when and where and how in the ring, is becoming around 80% now, and the 20% is going to be the grand finale, and that’s a true accurate assessment.”
His views on Mike Dallas Junior’s controversial loss against Mauricio Herrera on a recent edition of Friday Night Fights:
“That was a difficult night, particularly when you get a young man and you work with him for six weeks. He gives you everything that he has. He believes in what you’re telling him and he believes in what you’re working on with him, and he goes out and he executes! Did he turn into the complete fighter that I believe he can be? Not yet, it’s not soon enough. That was our first camp, but he did enough most certainly to win the fight. I mean it’s a consensus atmosphere when you speak with anybody that he won that fight. I can’t find anybody who says that he didn’t, so it was very disappoint for him and it was very disappointing for me. But in this business you have to move forward, you have to put it behind you, and you have to ask why would somebody go against us. We’ve identified what possibly could have been the reason, even though you kind of battle back and forth but you do have to make that decision on what could possibly have been the reason. He’ll be back up here in Oakland, California next week and we’ll see if we can correct what we feel like somebody took and saw a certain way, and we’ll make the necessary adjustments and corrections. Hopefully the next time it will be very clear to all those who are judging that he won the fight.”
Regarding specific things he believes Mike Dallas Junior could have done better that the judges might possibly be scoring against:
“The conclusion that I came to is that he’s going to have to go forward more, and also when he ties a man up it gives the appearance of holding as opposed to tying him up. Those are the two things that I took and that’s the two things that I intend to correct. As time goes along from the offensive end, he’s got the offense, he’s learning how to settle down, he’s learning how to recognize situations, and it’s painful to say we need to work on this when you knew in your heart we won. But you have to go through it. You have to confront it and you have to go through it. We feel in our hearts that we won the fight and when we go back to the drawing board we take the attitude that something cost us that fight and we intend to correct it. We can’t do anything about the judges. They have to do their work also. It’s an unforgiving sport, and you have to take the next fight in stride. You just can’t go back. Saying that, it’s going to be a great fight out for Michael Dallas his next time out regardless of who he fights.”
Regarding when he feels Michael Dallas Junior will return to the ring and whether he thinks a rematch with Herrera is a possibility:
“Well a rematch for what? I mean he really won the fight. I would like to see him take on somebody that he’s not supposed to beat as opposed to going back and doing a rematch with somebody that he did win. He’s going to have to be in that position I believe at some point in order to bring himself further along and challenge himself. There is no sense in having a rematch with Herrera when you beat him, and I doubt if they’d take the rematch anyway. There is nothing significant on the line. Now if he wants to put his belt on the line, which he didn’t do this time that might be something to be considered. But if it’s the same scenario and the same setup I don’t see where it would be relevant. I don’t make those calls. That’s just my personal opinion.”
His views on Wladimir Klitschko’s unification victory against David Haye and whether he thinks this has had an impact on the heavyweight division:
“I don’t know how it can effect it any more than it has been. It’s obvious that boxing is not being taught from the grassroots. I think a lot of time is being spendt on irrelevant things as far as strength works and things of that nature as opposed to teaching a person how to fight. David Haye was pretty stymied in his approach to that fight in the sense that he had no idea how to get in. When you’re sitting there and you’re watching this and you’re saying this is all you have to do to get in and when you get in what to do and it’s not being applied. The coaching is different now. It’s appealing to what the people want to see, basically a blood and guts type of fight, and skill is becoming secondary now. But it takes skill to win a fight! Haye has come a long way. He was a cruiserweight champion. I’m certainly not minimizing him. I like David Haye. I think he’s very exciting, but in a fight of that magnitude against a champion of that size and the duration that he’s been on the throne, I didn’t see a plan! I didn’t see something clear cut that said this is what it’s going to take to beat him and this is what we’re going to apply. I didn’t see a plan. I just saw a Hail Mary attitude that I believe I can catch him, and it looks like the whole camp was based on at some point in this fight I’m going to catch him and it’s going to go in my favor. I mean that’s the way he fought that fight, and then you have a champion who’s reluctant and he has all these physical attributes, and every time you do come in and he pulls away and grabs you and pushes you down. There you go! Not one time did I see Wladimir Klitschko try to set David Haye up. Or I didn’t see Wladimir Klitschko do like George Foreman did against Joe Frazier and say, look you’re the smaller man, you don’t have any business in the ring with me, I’m the King of the Jungle, and I’m going to get ready to walk you down and beat you down. I’m just going to hit you everywhere and there is nothing you can do. Why are you just going for his head? When you’re that size and you got that kind of power and you feel in your heart that you’re the King, then you go out and you just put the beating down and he will succumb to it. I didn’t see that either, so it was inevitable it was going to be that type of fight. Both men were leery of each other.”
Regarding which fellow boxing trainers out there today he has the most respect for:
“First and foremost, being in the training fraternity I dare not bad mouth any trainer because I know what they’re going up against. Saying that is to say that I admire the trainers that I see strategy in their approach, and I also admire trainers that have exhibited longevity in the sport in being able to win. You know, Freddie Roach, Nazim Richardson, Emanuel Steward, and the list goes on and on and on. I couldn’t name everybody. These are just some that come off the top of my head. I think Robert McCracken is a good coach with Froch. I think he’s done a good job with Froch. I believe Leon Lawson Senior is a good coach with what he’s done with Andre Dirrell, being able to take things to all sides and never letting an opponent get settled and having success with a young pup in the game. It goes on and on. Everybody has their philosophy. Everybody has their approach. I tend to go back more to the old school fundamentals over and over and over again, and skill above all.”
His views on Bernard Hopkins’ historic victory against Jean Pascal when he became the oldest fighter to win a major world championship at age 46:
“Well I think it validates what I just said. He’s taken that skill to such a level that he has developed that sense in boxing. There is a sense in boxing that, regardless of his age he’s able to sense what you’re going to do. So what happens is as the fight progresses you begin to look slow-motion to him because he cans sense what you’re going to do, and because he’s been in the ring so long he’s developed fundamental so long. He never deviated from that, and remarkably he was able to reinvent himself three times and that’s really saying something, because when you look at his early career he was a beast. He’d come right out of there and take it to you. Starting with the Trinidad fight he began to show his technical side, and then in the last two Pascal fights he came back and blended both in. I thought it was just incredible and just remarkable, but it just goes to show you that boxing more than any other sport like baseball or football where it calls for a different type of hand-eye and not so much sense. You can fight until your mid/late 40s if you were developed early on with the fundamentals and the skills because his senses are intact, very intact, so things look slow-motion to Bernard Hopkins and I think he’s exhibited that.”
His views on Carl Froch’s strengths as a fighter and what types of things he believes Froch can do in the ring which might cause Andre Ward some problems:
“Well first and foremost I’m a Carl Froch fan. I admire his bravado, I admire his confidence, and I admire the path that he’s taken, and I think that all of the accolades that come to him are justified. Of course I don’t want to get too much into what I perceive as his weaknesses. I have identified Carl Froch’s strengths and I have identified his weaknesses, and I believe the main focus and the main catalyst in this fight would be that Froch has a different perception of Andre outside of the ring that’s going to be totally different when he gets inside the ring. But I don’t blame him. He’s no different than anyone else who’s watched Andre and made predictions before they have fought him. So I think his weakness is his bravado. I think he puts up a good talk in front of the microphones and I think behind the scenes, and there is proof of this, that he worries a lot. I also think that his coach is not 100% confident in him. He made a comment that as long as Froch does what he wants him to do he’ll be alright. So that tells me he has no confidence in Froch thinking on his own, so it’s our job to get him in a situation where he has to think on his own. It’s our job to take whatever plan McCracken has and to get in Carl Froch’s mind that that plan is not working, and that’s what we intend to do. That fight will go in many different facets, but we intend to control all the facets. I know he made his comments about the back foot or whatever. It could be the back foot, the left foot, the good foot, the athletic foot, anything he wants we have an answer for, and I think he’s going to be surprised when he finds out that what he saw on the outside is not really like it is on the inside. So it’s going to be an interesting fight and we’re very much up for it.”
His views on where Andre Ward would rank pound-for-pound should he beat Carl Froch and win the Super Six:
“I don’t know where the public will have him. I tend to think that I always rate Andre beneath somebody he hasn’t fought, so I have Carl Froch rated above Andre Ward, and until Andre Ward beats Carl Froch he’ll stay beneath him. I have him rated beneath Lucian Bute, because he hasn’t fought him yet and that’s my philosophy. If you haven’t fought him, regardless of what the public feels and the public thinks you’re beneath him. They were champions before you were champions defending their titles. Froch is actually a two-time champion, so his credentials are much more impressive than yours at this time. But now when you beat him, then we can flip the script but until you beat him you have to accept your place where we feel like you should be, and he and I are in agreement with that. When he wins the Super Six tournament there’s a lot more work to do. I know we have a lot of goals in this business. We would like to win a light heavyweight title at some point and we’d like to fight the best of them, at all points fight the best.”
His views on Lucian Bute as a champion and whether he thinks Bute would be a logical opponent for Andre Ward should he win the Super Six:
“Well first of all, being a realist in boxing like I am, you can’t be critical of Bute when you have situations that go on where people are being maneuvered into titles. You have Canelo being maneuvered into a title. He’s fighting guys who are not even ranked in the division below him and he’s getting accolades and praises for that, so how can you knock Lucian Bute? You have Chavez Junior being maneuvered into a title and he’s getting accolades and praises for that, for fighting someone and disregarding those who are truly worthy of the challenge. So when you look at that aspect of boxing you have to tell the truth and say how can you talk about Lucian Bute? He’s not doing anything different than some people are. I happen to think he’s a great champion because he’s doing what he’s supposed to do with the people that he’s fighting and getting them out of there. Canelo is going the distance and he’s struggling. Chavez is going the distance and he’s struggling. He’s getting his people out of there so I have to give him credit for that, and by no means is he an unworthy champion. His time will come. Now I do have reservations as to whether or not he should get a shot right away after Froch and Ward and everyone has come through the gauntlet so to speak. I do have reservations about that, because it’s almost like you’re sitting there at the end and just waiting for a reward without working for it. Like I just mentioned, I’ve seen that with Canelo and Chavez Junior. By no means is he an unworthy champion. He’s worthy of every bit if praise that he gets, and I have nothing demeaning to say about him. He’s a tremendous talent, he works hard, he’s a big draw, he’s popular, and my hat goes off to him. One day I hope that we fight and I hope that fight will be soon. I am disappointed he and Kessler didn’t fight. I was very disappointed that Kessler decided to take the route that he took. I don’t know the particulars behind it, but with the politics of the sport there’s a lot. I just don’t understand why they would trot him out to Montreal and do all the things that they did, and the fight didn’t take place. It looks like he’s going to fight Kelly next. I think that will be a very interesting fight. By no means in my opinion is Kelly Pavlik through. You can’t base it on his last fight after such a long layoff and the tremendous odds that he’s overcome. I think he’s going to be a player in the division, and I think he’s somebody if they don’t take seriously they’re going to realize they made a mistake. The division is very interesting. The division is very strong. There are a lot of opportunities out there and I just hope everything stays intact in terms of fairness and who deserves it and who’s worth of it. I’m a fan of the super middleweight division right now and Bute, I’m a fan of his also.”
On whether he believes the Super Six can help generate more positive interest in boxing:
“I think it is a fight that will bring more attention to the sport, and in particular to the division. I expect a very, very competitive fight, but I also expect to emerge victorious and in spectacular fashion. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be an entertaining fight, but we intend to be dominant and we will be dominant, just plain and simple.”
