By Keith Idec

Andre Ward didn’t exactly sound Wednesday night as if he is in a hurry to get in the ring with Sergey Kovalev.

During an interview with HBO’s Michelle Beadle as part of a new episode of “The Fight Game with Jim Lampley” that debuted Wednesday night, Ward was honest about when he thinks a fight against Kovalev will take place. Beadle asked about facing Kovalev because that light heavyweight fight reportedly is part of the new deal Ward signed recently with HBO, the premium-cable network that also employs the undefeated WBA “super” super middleweight champion as a broadcaster.

“That’s easy for people to say who aren’t getting hit,” Ward replied after Beadle asked why Ward-Kovalev can’t occur sooner rather than later. “That’s very easy to say. But my question is, what’s the rush? Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, they didn’t fight when everybody wanted them to fight. They fought and, regardless of how people feel about the actual fight, the monetary outcome and the numbers that that fight did, it shattered the box-office ratings. And, I mean, that’s gonna be a great fight between Sergey Kovalev and myself, if and when it happens, and great fights need to be built up. And that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Russia’s Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KOs) is expected to defend his IBF, WBA and WBO 175-pound championships against Quebec’s Jean Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KOs, 1 NC) in a rematch Jan. 30 at Bell Centre in Montreal. Kovalev stopped Pascal in the eighth round of their first fight March 14 at Bell Centre.

Ward was supposed to return to the ring on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view undercard Nov. 21 in Las Vegas. Ward withdrew from that fight against Colombia’s Alexander Brand (24-1, 19 KOs) last week, however, due to inflammation in his right knee.

A shoulder injury that required surgery, a prolonged legal battle against onetime promoter, the late Dan Goossen, and now a knee injury have primarily combined to limit the 31-year-old Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) to two fights in the three-plus years since he dominated former light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (32-4, 18 KOs, 2 NC) throughout their September 2012 fight in Oakland, California.

“It’s a very difficult thing to deal with,” Ward told Beadle. “I wanted to contribute to the Canelo-Cotto card, a great card. It’s gonna be a great night of boxing. I’ve been in camp six, seven weeks, spent money on sparring partners, training expenses and everything like that. It’s the last thing that you wanna do, but I just wanna let my fans know that it’s not an injury, so to say. It’s just I had some inflammation in my knee. I couldn’t get it out. It was prohibiting my movement and we just had to make a tough call. [It was] very difficult, but I’ve been in this space before. I’ve just gotta weather this and then get ready for the new date and just move on.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.