In this video interview with Marcos Villegas of FightHub, trainer John David Jackson responds to rumors that he attempted to walk out on Sergey Kovalev in order to join sides with his opponent, Andre Ward. Check out some excerpts of what he had to say below...
On the rumors of him attempting to join Ward’s team:
“Here’s the thing, I was offered a deal. And you know, in the end, I didn’t take it. I have loyalty to my fighter...I’ll be honest, if they would’ve gave me Fort Knox, I would’ve went! I would’ve been there but they didn’t give me that so...But my loyalty to my fighter, I was working before we was champion, we won the title together and we’ve had a good run, and I want to see him win his title back. So my loyalty won over everything else...
“But the rumor was I reached out to them. I would never do that, they reached out to me and the funny thing is they said ‘please don’t say anything about this’ or they’ll deny it...but now they try to throw me under the bus. Now they’re saying I’m the one who reached out to them. I would never do that - that’s just not my way, not my style. And then I proved my point because I stayed with my fighter, I stayed loyal to my fighter, and I’m here. But yeah, initially they came to me with an offer to switch camps.”
On if he believes Ward’s camp purposely broke the story to create tension between Kovalev and himself:
“Nah, I think if I’d have signed a deal with them it wouldn’t have been a problem. I just sit back and I’m laughing at it because [they’re] saying ‘please don’t mention this’ and they try to throw me under the bus and say I reached out to them — because it’s all gamesmanship now. Now they trying to get inside Sergey’s head saying ‘look, your trainer didn’t want to be with you’...
“...they were saying Americans and the Russians and all this crap - well here’s my theory with that. I’m a black man in America, I can walk down the street and get shot by a cop. So how much do I really trust America and being American and I can get shot, my kids can get shot? I train fighters not because where they from, where they grew up. I train fighters if they’re good or not. Sergey’s a helluva fighter and we got together and we gel well in the ring - so it works. Doesn’t matter where you from, I don’t look at if you’re from America or from Saudi Arabia or Mexico, or wherever — I don’t care about that. If you can fight you can fight, and if I think you have potential to be a good fighter I want to help you get there.
“So now they’re using this America/Russia thing, you know, I have not problem with that. I know what the deal is.”