Ward: Bute has to beat an A level fighter to get a shot at me

By Boxing News - 12/18/2011 - Comments

Image: Ward: Bute has to beat an A level fighter to get a shot at meBy William Mackay: Andre Ward says he’s going to look around and see who he wants to fight next after beating Carl Froch tonight to win the Super Six tournament final, Froch’s WBC belt, and the Ring title in their fight at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Ward put on a beautiful boxing display in winning a 12 round unanimous decision against Froch and doing it without getting hit a lot. After the, Ward reportedly ruled out an immediate fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, saying that Bute needs to beat an A level fighter to take a fight with him according to Dan Rafael. But if Ward isn’t interested in facing Bute right now that leaves only a handful of worthy opponents unless Ward is going to milk his title by selecting one of the lower hanging contenders.

Here are the leading contenders for Ward:

Anthony Dirrell
Mikkel Kessler
Andre Dirrell
Kelly Pavlik

Out of that group of fighters it’s likely that only Anthony Dirrell would be ready and willing to face Ward next. Andre Dirrell needs a couple of more fights under his belt due to his long layoff. Kessler has a fight scheduled in April against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz and won’t be available until later on in the year to fight Ward. It’s doubtful that Kessler would want to fight Ward even then.

I can see Kessler making excuses indefinitely rather than facing Ward and getting beaten again. Ward easily beat Kessler two years ago in a fight that was similar to the Froch fight in its one-sided nature. Kelly Pavlik is very careful about the fights he takes nowadays and I can’t see him accepting a fight with Ward, not after the way that Ward handled Froch. That leaves only Anthony Dirrell. He’ll fight Ward any day of the week and would likely give him a lot more troubles than Froch did.



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