Andre Ward gets deep at the first press conference to announce his upcoming rematch with Sergey Kovalev in Vegas.

Andre Ward is perhaps one of the most technically gifted pure boxers in the sport today. He’s also a fighter who’s overcome as much adversity in his career and his life as any.

He knows about hard times. He knows about ups and downs. He knows about boxing, period.

SEE ALSO: Kovalev struggling to conceal contempt for Ward

Today he spoke more about the business side of boxing than the actual fight with Kovalev himself. He didn’t appear to be worried about him in the slightest.

He went into detail on how he could care less of what people think and how he’s approaching things mentally ahead of the rematch:

“There’s perception and there’s reality. When you’re young you get caught up in the perception. You care about every little thing that’s written, everybody’s opinion, but as you go grow and learn this (boxing) business and this is what I tell guys that I mentor, it’s not about perception. The perception is that some type of mentality that I’m showing, or have shown after this fight that I’ hadn’t shown up until this point – what does that make sense? Nobody in this room can point to a fighter that I run from. Nobody can point to a fight where I turned. Not one time. That’s not in my track record. So I don’t mind about perception. I don’t care about an Instagram (post). I don’t care about that stuff man. This is chess not checkers. You can make all the moves you want to make, but it’s about the check mate and that’s when the game is over.”

Ward has never been a man for the trash talk in all fairness but I think if you pushed him on it and if he spoke from his heart of hearts, I reckon he wants to put on a show this time around against Kovalev.

Mainly to prove to any doubters beyond reason that he’s the better fighter.

Of course so will Kovalev. That’s what makes this rematch an even better fight to watch then the first one, for my buck.

If you have not seen all of Ward’s career to date this HBO compilation on YouTube of some of his best moments is worth a quick watch: