By Scott Gilfoid: With the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) reportedly choosing not to sanction an Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) vs. #6 WBO Rohan Murdock fight for November 21st on the undercard of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight in Las Vegas, Ward now could be facing #5 WBO Alexander Brandon (24-1. 19 KOs).
According to Dan Rafael, the 38-year-old Brand is now someone whose name is being mentioned as a possibility for Ward. This is arguably a step down from the 23-year-old Murdock. Brand was beaten three years ago by Badou Jack by an 8 round decision.
He’s probably no better than Murdock, even though he’s ranked one place higher than him at #5.
At this point, Ward’s promoters at Roc Nation Sports aren’t going to be able to get someone really good because there’s now less than one month to go before his fight. If the NSAC isn’t good with Brand, then I don’t know if Roc Nation is going to be able to find much better than that.
It’s just hard to believe that #6 WBO Murdock was rejected, because he’s a top 10 contender, and is young at 23. The Colombian Brand is almost 40, and has faced only one quality opponent during his six-year pro career in Badou Jack, who beat him.
It looks like Ward wants to defend his WBA 168lb title though. If he’s being matched up with super middleweights, then it means that he must want to defend his title. I can’t imagine Ward wanting to drag a super middleweight up to 175 for him to fight, because there are plenty of light heavyweight contenders that he could face that would help him get ready for the division.
Brand and Murdock wouldn’t be good to get Ward ready for fighting light heavyweights because neither guy has the kind of size to get him ready for the type of fighters that he’ll be facing in that weight class.
It would be a pity if Ward can’t get the green light to fight on the Cotto vs. Canelo card, because the card needs him. There aren’t any real interesting fighters on the Cotto-Canelo HBO PPV card once you get past the main event. The only fights on the card right now are Takashi Miura vs. Francisco Vargas and Jayson Velez vs. Ronny Rios.
Neither of those fights are interesting enough to attract people to want to purchase the fight on HBO pay-per-view. The card absolutely needs Ward on it. Yeah, it would be good if Ward would be facing a super talent like the Dirrell brothers, but you’re not going to get talents like them to agree to the fight with less than 4 weeks’ notice. Brand and Murdock might be as good as it gets for Ward and Roc Nation Sports.
Ward is in a bad position though because he’s being added to the Cotto-Canelo card late, and he’s so good that it looks like the NSAC isn’t going to let him fight just any contender. They must want him to fight someone really superb. But the 38-year-old Alexander Brand is top 4 with the World Boxing Council, and that should be enough for him to be given the green light to fight on the card against Ward.
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