Green is going to get that fight he’s been seeking from Ward

By Jason Kim: Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) says he wants to test WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) and make a fight of it on Saturday night at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. You can bet that the 26-year-old Ward is going to oblige Green and really bring it in their stage 2 Super Six tournament fight. Green has hinted that Ward is a finesse fighter who lacks the same kind of big power that he possesses.

However, I expect that Green is going to be unpleasantly surprised at how much power that Ward does have in his punches, because he’s probably going to be getting hit a lot more than he’s ever been in his entire career. Green’s best opponent of his career was Edison Miranda, who beat Green by a 10 round unanimous decision three years ago.

Miranda, although winning the fight, really didn’t connect with that many shots against Green until the 10th and final round when Miranda hurt Green with a hard right hand while Green was trying to throw a punch of his own late in the round. Miranda had no problems connecting with his shots after that, as Green was wide open and staggering around the ring trying to save himself from being knocked out.

Ward, say what you want about his lack of power, is going to be deadly accurate with his shots and will be connecting a lot more than Miranda did. At 30-years-old, we could see Green getting old on Saturday night against Ward. Green didn’t look all that good in his last fight against Tarvis Simms, and it was all he could do to land anything at at times. He spent much of the fight badly missing and falling off balance.

Green looked both tired and somewhat uncoordinated. He’d seen many of Green’s past fights where he didn’t look at that impressive until he was able to land a big shot to get his opponent in trouble. It didn’t matter that Green was missing a lot of his shots and falling off balance after throwing punches. His power was enough.

However, Green can’t fight like that against a skilled fighter like Ward if he wants to win. He’s got to be much more disciplined with his shots because Ward will literally eat him alive if he goes throwing wild shots and missing. He’s going to be countered hard by punches that he won’t even see. I suspect that Green will start to throw fewer and fewer punches in each progressing round to avoid Ward’s hard counter shots.

But at this point, the fight will be pretty much over because Green will be dominated from the second half of the fight on and just looking to survive and avoid suffering a humiliating knockout. I see Green doing a good imitation of Joshua Clottey in the 2nd half of the Ward fight, thinking safety first and just looking to cover up and try to avoid getting hit so much. Instead of going out on his shield, I think Green will just play it safe and be content with losing a lopsided 12 round decision.

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