Andre Ward says he could move up to 175 soon

By Boxing News - 09/23/2012 - Comments

Image: Andre Ward says he could move up to 175 soonBy Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward revealed that he’s considering a move up to light heavyweight real soon. He feels that it’s tough for him to get big fights at super middleweight now, and will be speaking to his team about a move up in weight to 175.

Ward told Jim Lampley on his HBO Fight Game show last Saturday night “I don’t think so [getting a fight with Sergio Martinez] for the moment due to the weight difference and size difference. All the talk from the Martinez camp is that Ward has to come down to 160. I think they mentioned 164. But I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be at super middleweight. For me to get down to 160 or 164, I wouldn’t be any good at it. It wouldn’t be good for my career. So at the moment I don’t realistically think that fight [against Sergio Martinez] is going to be made. I think I would be very strong at the weight [175]. I’m not even the biggest super middleweight, so I know the fighters at light heavyweight would be even bigger. But I know the ideal situation is to go to 175 and not come back down. There’s not a lot of options at 168. So in the coming weeks my team and I need to put our heads together and get creative in terms of what’s going to be next.”

Ward is right. He honestly doesn’t have a lot of options at 168 anymore. He already beat Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham by lopsided decisions. Those guys aren’t about to fight Ward again and take a second helping. Lucian Bute was already exposed by Froch, and will probably get beat again when they fight again in early 2013. Kelly Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum likely won’t let him fight Ward, because the chances are too high that Pavlik would get embarrassed. The other options – Thomas Oosthuizen, Anthony Dirrell, Andre Dirrell, Adonis Stevenson, Don George and Edwin Rodriguez – aren’t appealing fights. Just trying to get one of them to fight Ward would likely take ages and not be worth much in terms of attracting fan interest.

Most of the top super middleweights will soon be at light heavyweight anyway, so Ward would simply be getting there a little than them. But at 175, Ward could dominate for a long time because the talent pool is so-so.

Ideally, it would be nice if Ward could get a fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but he’s facing a long suspension now due to his positive marijuana test and besides that, he’s got a rematch coming up with Martinez once he does get off his suspension. A second loss to Martinez will put Chavez Jr. into the rebuilding stage and he’s not going to fight Ward after that.



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