By Stephie Lynne – We’re heartbroken.  We’re upset.  We are left with more questions than answers.   And then real life hits.  Can we really be upset that a fighter has sat down with his team and made an educated decision to retire, rather than put his body through further hell for our entertainment?  Can we rightfully expect him to kill himself in the ring while we cheer his eventual downfall?

Andre Ward leaves our beloved sport as one of the best to ever do it.  He retires 32-0 with 16 KOs and even his amateur career was a stellar one.

He said on his website “I want to be clear – I am leaving because my body can no longer put up with the rigors of the sport and therefore my desire to fight is no longer there. If I cannot give my family, my team, and the fans everything that I have, then I should no longer be fighting.”  Are we really at liberty to ask him to give more?

With notable wins over Sergey Kovalev, Chad Dawson, Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch, I think it’s safe to say, he put in work.  He has excelled where others have failed and has always given fans a great showing every time he stepped into the square circle.

With all that being said, as fans, we can be sad to see him go but we must also realize that we don’t have to get hit every day just to get a paycheck.  We don’t have to deal with poorly educated judges, crooked promoters, and constant pain.  We just watch and cheer.

Congrats to Andre on an amazing career and hope to see him back in the boxing world in another capacity very soon.