Fourteen years after the fight that changed both their lives, Andre Ward sits down with “Bad” Chad Dawson and gets some things off his chest. Ward opens up about why he never wanted the fight, the apology he’s carried ever since, and what he knew about Dawson’s camp that he saved for the weigh-in. Dawson holds nothing back either: getting dropped in sparring two weeks out, who leaked it, why he’s “110% sure” Bernard Hopkins faked the shoulder injury, the Adonis Stevenson knockout, and the same referee who stopped both of his worst nights.

From gloves on his hands as a baby to signing his first pro contract in the gym without anyone reading it, the three-time world champion walks through a career built on fighting anyone, anywhere, and the price he paid for it: three years in Vegas after the losses and the long road back home. Plus a first-time reveal about why he really chased Antonio Tarver, his pick in the Keyshawn Davis vs Devin Haney debate, and sparring Jake Paul.

00:00 - Welcome & Reconnecting with Chad Dawson
03:23 - Andre Ward’s Reflection & Weight Class Regrets
05:49 - Adonis Stevenson Camp & Weigh-In Scuffle
08:13 - Press Conference Energy & Sparring Southpaws
11:45 - Growing Up in a Boxing Family & Turning Pro
18:15 - Glenn Johnson Reality Check & Style Identity
25:01 - Breaking Out: The 2007 Tomas Adamek Title Win
30:23 - Moving Camps to Vegas & Team Friction
36:38 - Vacating Titles & Fighting Antonio Tarver
41:16 - Chasing Big Names & Boxing Business Mistakes
48:41 - Breakdown: Modern Fighters & Style Matchups
51:44 - Facing Jean Pascal in Canada & Controversial Stoppage
55:16 - Bernard Hopkins Drama: Ring Toss & Mind Games
1:02:15 - The Aftermath of the B-Hop Fights
1:08:40 - Weight Cut Nightmares
1:14:20 - Reflection on Career Accomplishments & Hall of Fame Debates
1:18:05 - Current State of the Light Heavyweight Division
1:23:50 - Passing the Torch & Final Message to the Fans

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We’re BACK for PART 2 of THE ART OF WARD featuring Zab Judah. Zab kicks off by telling Andre Ward what the Cory Spinks fight week actually looked like: checking into the hotel under an alias and getting a death threat on the room phone anyway, armed security rotating outside his door through the night, and sending his conditioning coach out in street clothes to order the team’s food because he was certain somebody would try to poison it.

Then the run that defined the rest of his career. He lost the undisputed title to Carlos Baldomir, and Don King had him re-signing his contract that same night, because the IBF belt was the only thing left that could get him Floyd Mayweather. Zab makes his full case on that fight: the glove that touched the canvas and was never called a knockdown, the first five rounds, Roger Mayweather coming into the ring in the tenth and his own father walking in right behind him, the $8 million purse and the $350,000 he handed straight back in fines, and why the year they suspended him afterward hurt more than the loss.

Plus Miguel Cotto’s low blows on Puerto Rican Day weekend at the Garden, the Lucas Matthysse camp he built off a tape of Matthysse’s third professional fight, the three million dollars he refused to hand an investor, the accountants who ran through what was left, and the walk he took by himself to a Brooklyn hospital thirty days after his final fight that ended in emergency brain surgery.

0:00 – Intro: Fight week lockdown before Corey Spinks II
7:53 – The knockout & the Harlem Shake celebration
10:21 – Post-fight bond with Corey Spinks
15:57 – The Carlos Baldomir loss & re-signing with Don King
20:15 – Setting up the Floyd Mayweather superfight
23:13 – Fight week tension with Mayweather
27:06 – Breaking down Floyd’s style and the early rounds
30:25 – Controversial scoring & the suspension conspiracy
33:02 – The ring brawl breaks out
37:04 – Body shots, fatigue, and respect for Floyd
40:18 – Nevada fine, one-year suspension, moving forward
41:36 – Miguel Cotto war at MSG & the low blows
45:47 – When boxing became “just a job”
46:27 – Underestimating Lucas Matthysse & the mid-fight adjustment
52:10 – Becoming his own promoter and dealmaker
56:09 – Money problems and hard financial lessons
1:03:30 – Comeback fights and the Cletus Seldin stoppage
1:04:28 – Hospital scare and emergency brain surgery
1:11:10 – Recovery, reflection, and closing thoughts

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Zab Judah sits down with Andre Ward for a two-part conversation on a career that started at six years old and didn’t end until he was 41. The Brownsville-born six-time world champion takes Dre all the way back to the beginning: a mother and father who met in karate school, a house where you fought your own brothers for food and for who got the bike, the Golden Gloves chain snatched off his neck on the train, and the night his father woke him up in the middle of the night just to put him in front of Mike Tyson.

Part 1 is the climb and the first collapse. Duva pulled him out of the Golden Gloves at sixteen and put him on a plane to spar Pernell Whitaker, who didn’t know who he was for three days. At eighteen he was the co-main event on HBO. At fifteen and zero he took the Micky Ward fight everybody told him to turn down, and ended up in the corner telling his own father he thought his ribs were broken. Then Kostya Tszyu: undefeated, headlining Vegas for the first time, and it was over in two rounds. Zab tells all of it, the stool, the referee, the year they took from him, and why he still says he never got to go out on his shield.

Plus the recruitment that changed his career: Don King walking into Justin’s in New York with a bag of cash in the limo, the plane tickets to Florida that somehow didn’t exist for his two lawyers, the Statue of Liberty in the backyard, and the $250,000 in a Gucci bag and the green convertible Bentley he drove home himself because he wasn’t about to let anybody ship it.

0:00 – Welcome Zab Judah to The Art of Ward
3:26 – Combat Family Roots & Growing Up with 14 Siblings
6:01 – Brooklyn Amateur Days & High School Survival
9:52 – Life in the Brownsville Projects
11:09 – Meeting Mike Tyson at Age 8
13:07 – Tyson’s Highs, Lows, and Wisdom
21:26 – AD BREAK
22:51 – Golden Gloves Champion & NYC vs. Upstate Mentality
26:26 – 1996 Olympic Trials & Linking Up with Floyd Mayweather
29:12 – Turning Pro & Sparring with Pernell Whitaker
33:24 – Tyson Undercards & the Mickey Ward War
36:55 – First Title Win & Living Large as Champ
39:44 – The Kostya Tszyu Fight & Aftermath
44:07 – Throwing the Chair & Dealing with the Fallout
52:39 – Second World Title & First Deal with Don King
55:34 – Signing with Don King in Florida (the Bentley Bonus)
1:07:55 – The Corey Spinks Fights & Becoming Undisputed Champ in St. Louis
1:13:37 – Chaos in the Corner (Part 1 Ends)

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