(Photo credit: Tom Hogan – Hoganphotos/Roc Nation Sports) By Scott Gilfoid: With Floyd Mayweather Jr. now gone from the sport of boxing due to him having retired recently, super middleweight talent Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) is poised to move into the No.1 spot to claim his spot at the top of the sport.
Ward’s fight against #5 WBC Alexander Brand (24-1, 19 KOs) is the first step in the road for Ward, as he moved to snatch the top spot. Ward could be within three fights of taking the top spot. His recent 3-fight contract with HBO culminates with him fighting IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev at the tail end of 2016.
A win over Kovalev will put Ward at the top of the sport. The only thing left for Ward at that point is to try and lure IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin up to super middleweight so that he can face him and expose him.
There isn’t going to be any big fights for Golovkin anyway in his own division at middleweight, and I think he’ll find that out very soon. The only option Golovkin has for a big fight is for him to move up in weight eight pounds to face Ward at 168.
Ward fights Brand on November 21st on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto – Saul Canelo Alvarez on HBO PPV. The fight will take place at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ward-Brand fight will the chief support to the Cotto-Canelo fight, and it’ll be a great showcase fight for Ward to show his stuff.
“Starting this multi-fight agreement and Andre’s quest to conquer the light-heavyweight division with a fight on the highly-anticipated November 21 pay-per-view event is a fitting way to kick things off,” said David Itskowitch of Roc Nation Sports. “We are hopeful that November 21 is the first step toward a 2016 showdown with Sergey Kovalev.”
Before the Kovalev fight, Ward will have one other fight that he’ll need to get out of the way before he can take that fight. It’s expected to be a top light heavyweight talent that he faces. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Ward facing the likes of Sullivan Barrera, Andrzej Fonfara, Artur Beterbiev, Jean Pascal, Eleider Alvarez, Isaac Chilemba or Yunieski Gonzalez.
I think it’s pretty likely that we’ll see Ward fighting one of those guys because those fighters are considered to be the best of the contenders at 175. Once Ward takes one of their scalps, he’ll truly be ready to step inside the ring to face Kovalev for his straps.
I don’t think beating Kovalev will be the hardest thing for Ward to do to take over Mayweather’s spot at the top. I believe that WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson will be the much tougher obstacle for Ward, both in beating and trying to get a fight against him. Getting Stevenson into the ring could prove to be a tough thing for Ward to do, but once he adds Kovalev’s pelt to his collection of fine pelts, I see Stevenson and his adviser Al Haymon agreeing to take the fight because it would be such a huge money fight by that point. With the kind of cash that will be at stake in a Ward-Stevenson fight by early 2017, I can’t see how Stevenson and Haymon will be able to resist that sweet cash.
Comments are closed.