Green-Ward: Is Allan overmatched in this fight?

By Sean McDaniel: Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) was recently chosen to replace Jermain Taylor in the Super Six tournament, and for Green’s first fight he has the bad luck of being matched against unbeaten Andre Ward (21-, 13 KO’s). That’s not good news, because Ward is coming off a huge upset of World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler in November. Many people had earlier picked Kessler to win the Super Six tournament. However, with the ease with which Ward defeated Kessler, it now has people thinking that Ward will win the Super Six.

Green, 30, has good overall boxing skills starting with his height. He stands 6’2”, has incredibly fast hands and excellent power. He’s probably even faster than Ward and likely hits harder than him as well. But Green isn’t good on defense. In fact, I’d say he’s very poor defensively. In his last fight last year in October against Tarvis Simms, Green was getting lit by the southpaw Simms, and backed up to the ropes where he took some big shots.

Simms isn’t a huge puncher by any stretch of the imagination, which is why it was somewhat unsettling to see Green getting rocked by him at one point in the fight and showing zero ability to block Simms’s left hands. Actually, Green wasn’t stopping Simms’s right hands either. He wasn’t stopping anything unless you count blocking punches with his face.

Green did a good job of that. Green’s defense was his offense. Green looked good when he throwing shots and moving around the ring. He looked very and threw some nice combinations. However, Simms was never troubled by any of Green’s shots and took them without any problems. For Green, he was stepping up with this fight from the mostly 2nd tier fighters that he’s feasted on during his entire eight year pro career.

Aside from a 10 round defeat at the hands of Edison Miranda in 2007, Green hasn’t shown much of an urgency to move beyond B level competition. It’s certainly hasn’t hurt Green. He has eye popping record of 29-1, but unfortunately there’s not one fighter amongst that list that I would consider a 1st tier opponent.
So what happens when Green starts taking shots from Ward on April 24th?

The two will be meeting in Ward’s home city of Oakland, California, where Green will be fighting in front of a huge pro Ward crowd that could be as large as 18,000 fans. For the 30-year-old Green, that’s high pressure situation. Not only will there be a lot of fans present for Ward, but the fight will be shown on Showtime live, and seen my by many more thousands of people.

Will Green fold in the moment of truth or will he rise up and fight to the level of his competition? It’s hard to say, because Green just doesn’t have the prior experience to tell you what he’s going to do. The nearest that Green has gotten to a fighter in the class of Ward is Miranda and Simms. I don’t consider the 38-year-old Simms to be a top tier super middleweight.

And Miranda was totally dominated by Ward last year, losing a one-sided 12 round decision in May. I know that Green has an excuse for losing to Miranda, something along the lines of that he took the fight shortly after having a great deal of his colon removed in an operation. However, the fact remains Green still looked horrible in losing to Miranda, and looked nearly as bad beating Simms last year. Those are the only two fights you can go by with Green, because the rest of his opponents have been 2nd tier fighters.

7 Responses to “Green-Ward: Is Allan overmatched in this fight?”