Ward to Froch: Atlantic City isn’t my hometown

By Boxing News - 12/03/2012 - Comments

Image: Ward to Froch: Atlantic City isn't my hometownBy Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward took the time to respond to IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s request that Ward fight him in the UK now to pay Froch back for having fought Ward in his home turf.

Ward said this on his twitter today: “Froch said he fought me in my backyard. Well, Atlantic City is almost 3,000 Mi away from home for me. I tried to tell him…he wouldn’t listen. Lol!! Uhh Ohh…We just woke the Cobra!! He just tweeted me.”

Froch said this in response: “Andre Ward good point about business… especially being as the ‘Son of God’ can’t even sell a ticket in his back yard!!”

I’m not sure if Froch is talking about Atlantic City or Oakland, California in talking about Ward’s “backyard.”

What Froch fails to understand is that the United States is huge, and the Froch-Ward fight took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey last December, not Ward’s home city of Oakland, California, which is on the opposite side of the U.S. It wasn’t a home fight for Ward, because his fans are in Oakland.

Ward fights in front of huge 9000 fan crowds in Oakland, which is about the same amount that Froch fights in front of in Nottingham. But I guess Froch isn’t aware of that because it looks like he’s thinking that all of the United States is Ward’s home. It doesn’t work like in the U.S. It might be that way in the UK, but that’s a much smaller country.

Ward sells tickets really well in his home city of Oakland, but he’s not a big enough star yet to sell out arenas on the East coast of the U.S. I think he will at some point, but he needs a recognizable opponent to U.S casual boxing fans, and Froch didn’t have the name to help Ward. Maybe if it was Andre Dirrell, we’d see big numbers in a Ward fight in Atlantic City, but not with Froch.

There’s point in Ward fighting Froch in the UK because Ward still never got the chance to fight Froch in his own hometown of Oakland. So, if Froch wants a fight with Ward, he’s going to have to come to Oakland to make the fight happen because their fight last year in December was a neutral venue fight.



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