In a bit of a surprising move, undefeated light heavyweight champion Andre Ward announced his retirement from boxing on Thursday morning at the age of 33.
With that in mind, he has developed a strong bond with many players around the NBA over the last few years, which includes Golden State Warriors star forward Kevin Durant. In a piece written by Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated back in April, Ward had revealed that Durant had called him his favorite fighter.
And KD [Kevin Durant] is the same way. I met KD through Instagram. I was scrolling through my direct messages, I see this long message from KD, man, just basically saying, ‘Dude, look, man, I rock with you. You’re my favorite fighter. I appreciate you in the ring for your time. But I appreciate the type of dude you are. So I make a couple of calls like, ‘Is this him?’ And sure enough, it was him. He said, ‘Here goes my number,’ so we been building ever since. Then obviously he came here, and he’s just a regular dude, man. You know we text. We communicate. We talk to each other. He came to camp and encouraged me before the Kovalev fight. You wouldn’t know he was who he was just talking to him.
Durant had developed a closer bond with Ward after he made the decision to sign with the Warriors. There was already that foundation there with teammate Stephen Curry already having that tight friendship with him given that he's a Bay Area native being born and raised in San Francisco.
The 28-year-old has been quite supportive of Ward over the past several months including being ringside for his rematch against Sergey Kovalev back in June just a few days after the Warriors won the NBA title.
Game recognize game. Champs recognize champs.🏆💍🥊#WardKovalev pic.twitter.com/A7ZAYOjzRs
— HBOboxing (@HBOboxing) June 18, 2017
Although Ward is venturing off into retirement with an unblemished record, the close bond between he and Durant should remain as there is much mutual respect between them both.
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