Andre Ward wanted to bulk up to heavyweight to fight 17-stone Anthony Joshua

Andre Ward has revealed he planned to bulk up to heavyweight and face Anthony Joshua before he eventually retired.

The American star hung up his gloves after defeating Sergey Kovalev at light-heavyweight in 2017 retiring with an undefeated record of 33 victories.

Ward shared the ring with some big names in the sport including Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch when fighting at super-middleweight.

However the 38-year-old has now revealed the fights he wanted to take before the end of his career, tweeting: "Froch, rematch in the UK; Golovkin, he turned it down in less than 5min, Anthony Joshua but I retired."

Ward considered his options after his stoppage defeat against Kovalev before announcing his retirement from the sport, four months after the fight in October 2017.

At the time Joshua had just been involved in a mega-fight with Wladimir Klitschko which he won in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley.

He held the unified WBA and IBF titles at the time which were considered to be a big draw in Ward's potential pursuit of Joshua.

And after making a successful leap to become champion at light-heavyweight, Ward believed he could continue to defeat "giants" and was suggested the idea of facing Joshua by his trainer Virgil Hunter.

"I always seem to be knocking down giants one by one," Ward said. "Heavyweight, that's always been a dream of mine. It's got to be against the right guy, but I dream big and anything is possible.

"He [Ward's trainer Virgil Hunter] has always been setting the bar high, that is the essence of our team right there.

"That man will have me believing things that I never even thought of. Like, 'Anthony Joshua, really?' and it will make perfect sense to him. So we'll see."

Ward is considered one of the best