Andre Ward joins Roc Nation Sports
Dan Rafael [ARCHIVE]
ESPN.com | January 9, 2015
NEW YORK -- Super middleweight champion Andre Ward, who has fought only twice in the past three years -- mainly because of a protracted contact battle with Goossen Promotions -- is about to get a lot busier.
Music mogul Jay Z's Roc Nation Sports, in its biggest move yet since opening a boxing promotion division in August, signed Ward on Friday, shortly after Ward worked out an agreement to part ways with Goossen Promotions.
"It's official!! #NextChapter Happy to be a part of the @rocnation family," Ward tweeted on Friday morning.
Details of how the split with Goossen Promotions came about after years of legal battling were not disclosed, but Tom Brown of Goossen Promotions clearly was not happy with the result.
"That chapter is closed. I've moved on," Brown told ESPN.com.
Roc Nation Sports' move comes only hours before it will promote its first fight card on Friday (Fox Sports 1/Fox Deportes, 10 p.m. ET) at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, which is headlined by welterweight prospect Dusty Hernandez-Harrison against Tommy Rainone. Ward will be ringside for the show.
"We have signed Andre Ward and it's something we're very excited about," David Itskowitch, chief operating officer of Roc Nation Sports' boxing division, told ESPN.com. "It's just the beginning for us but it's a game changer. He's one of the best fighters in the world. Everything is coming together for us. On the same day we are having our first event, at Madison Square Garden, we are announcing our first really huge signing."
Ward (27-0, 14 KOs), widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world not named Floyd Mayweather Jr., will instantly become the face of Roc Nation Sports' boxing franchise, one day after the company completed a deal to buy promoter Gary Shaw's company, an agreement under which it will take over most of his 20 or so fighter promotional contracts and see Shaw jointly run Roc Nation Sports' boxing division along with Itskowitch.
Dan Goossen
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Andre Ward's outside-the-ring problems continued with Goossen Promotions even after the untimely death of Dan Goossen, left.
More than any of the Shaw fighters, Ward is the big prize. When he fights next has not been determined.
"We're going to sit down and talk about when he will specifically fight and the level of opponent he will fight," Itskowitch said. "He's been out of the ring for a while. We'll come up with names and come up with a date but we're excited to give him the opportunity to show he's one of the best in the world."
Since rolling through the Super Six World Boxing classic in dominating fashion (including lopsided wins against Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch) to unify two 168-pound world titles in the December 2011 final, Ward has boxed only twice.
Ward, of Oakland, California, delivered a tour de force performance in a 10th-round destruction of then-light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson, who dropped down to super middleweight to fight Ward, in September 2012. After a 14-month layoff, Ward, since stripped of one of his belts for inactivity, returned to win a one-sided decision against Edwin Rodriguez in November 2013.
Part of the reason for his layoff was a shoulder injury that led to surgery and forced a fight with former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik to be canceled, but mainly it was problems with promoter Dan Goossen, who signed Ward after he won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics and promoted his entire professional career until his untimely death from liver cancer at age 64 on Sept. 29.
Goossen Promotions, now being run by Brown, Goossen's brother in law, and Craig Goossen, Dan's son, still had about two years remaining on its contract with Ward, but it was an untenable situation.
At least four times, using various arguments, Ward, who will turn 31 on Feb. 23, attempted to break his contract with Goossen Promotions. Ward lost an effort in Los Angeles Superior Court in August in which the judge dismissed his case saying he did not have "any basis upon which to invalidate the contract."
Another case was ongoing in which Ward accused Goossen Promotions of violating the federal Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act for failing to disclose all forms of income generated by his fights. Goossen Promotions denied the charge and countersued Ward for $10 million, claiming defamation.
Previously, the California State Athletic Commission twice ruled against Ward in separate arbitration hearings pertaining to efforts to terminate his promotional agreement
