By Dan Ambrose: Bernard Hopkins is picking Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) to defeat unbeaten Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) by a 5th round knockout in their fight this Saturday night on March 26th on HBO Championship Boxing from the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
Hopkins doesn’t go into why he thinks Ward will win the fight by a knockout, but he obviously believes he’ll have too much talent for the 34-year-old Cuban Barrera. This is Ward’s debut at light heavyweight, and a lot of eyes will be on him to see how he does in this fight.
If Ward wins, a fight against IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev could be his next opponent in November. Hopkins doesn’t want Ward to take the fight with Kovalev yet, however, because he thinks the fight needs to be build up more to make it a bigger fight.
Hopkins also sees Kovalev as having too much momentum at this time because of his recent win over him as well as other fighters. Hopkins wants to see Ward get comfortable in the 175lb division before he faces a wrecking machine like Kovalev.
“The king of that division [Ward] moved up to light heavyweight and that’s Andre Ward, and he’s making his debut at light heavyweight,” said Hopkins to Fighthype.com. “I think he’ll beat him by a knockout by a mid-round knockout, late knockout,” said Hopkins.
Hopkins is fond of Ward, who has patterned his fighting style after him. If you look at Ward’s fighting style, you’ll see a lot of the Hopkins from the early 90s in it. Hopkins used to do a lot of wrestling on the inside earlier in his career, and that’s how Ward has fought in many of his fights, especially in the Super Six tournament.
Barrera is being overlooked in his fight by Hopkins, and I think it could be a bad for Ward if he’s assuming that he’s going to get the win just because of the things he’s done in the past. Ward has to realize that the stuff he did years ago in the Super Six tournament no longer hold weight. Ward picked up those wins when he was younger, and fighting in a smaller weight class than he is at now.
In many cases, Ward was also fighting lesser fighters than he’s going to be fighting in the 175lb division. That’s not a knock on the 168lb division, but it’s more of the reality. Ward will be getting hit harder by Barrera than he has ever been hit before during his career.
If Ward’s chin doesn’t hold up, then he might need to reconsider the idea of him fighting in the 175lb division. Ward might be stuck, however, because it’s unclear whether he can comfortably melt back down to super middleweight to campaign in that weight class at his age. Ward is about to turn 32, and taking weight off to fight in the super middleweight division could prove to be a difficult thing for Ward.
Ward will probably take the fight to the inside against Barrera on Saturday night if he starts getting nailed by big shots from the Cuban on the outside. It could be a messy fight.
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