By Allan Fox: Next Saturday night on March 26, Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) will be facing Cuban Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) in the 31-year-old Ward’s first real fight at 175lbs on HBO Boxing from the Oracles Arena in Oakland, California.
Ward needs to win this fight so that he can get to an arguably more important match against unbeaten IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Barrera is considered to be a good fighter, but not in Ward’s class in terms of talent.
However, Ward isn’t overlooking Barrera. He seems him as a real test, and he’s not going to make the mistake of assuming he’ll get past the 34-year-old contender. This is Ward’s real test at light heavyweight, and he doesn’t want to spoil it by getting beaten.
Ward won’t have to worry about draining down to 168 for this fight, so he should have more power and energy for not having to take off the weight that he’s had. Whether Ward will have the kind of punching power needed for him to compete on the same playing field with Barrera and other light heavyweights in the division is unclear.
“I definitely feel stronger,” Ward said. “I still feel like I have my speed. I still feel like I have all the things that made who I was at super middleweight. But I also feel a lot stronger at 175. I’m a lot happier because I don’t have to kill myself, per se, to make weight.”
Many fighters say they have more power when they move up in weight class, but oftentimes they’re no better off than they were when they were fighting in the previous weight class. In other words, it’s all in their head. They want to believe that they will suddenly have more punching power when they move up a weight class, but they do not.
“He’s a solid fighter,” Ward said. “He seems to be technically sound. He seems to have a good pedigree. And he’s got a good team, so we’re taking him very seriously like we do every opponent.”
Barrera does not have the hand speed that Ward possesses, and he’s not as great at jabbing. Ward is also the better fighter defensively than Barrera. What Barrera has over Ward is punching power advantage, although Ward would probably not admit it.
The other advantage that Barrera has over Ward is he’s been the more active fighter in the last five years. Ward has been out of the ring much of the time with injuries and promotional troubles. He’s now over problems and presumably on course to fight next Saturday. However, you can never assume anything until Ward is in the ring and ready to fight.
An injury or something could pop up, and cause the fight to be called off. If Ward doesn’t come down with an injury or some other problem that prevents the Barrera fight from taking place, then we could see an interesting match-up. It’ll be Ward’s speed and boxing IQ vs. Barrera’s punching power and likely his stamina. It could turn out to be a really close fight in the end.
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