Ward Defeats Buchanan

By Boxing News - 02/09/2009 - Comments

ward4422Photo: Tom Casino/SHOWTIME – By Jim Dower: Unbeaten super middleweight contender Andre Ward (18-0, 12 KOs) soundly defeated Henry Buchanan (17-2, 12 KOs) by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino, in Lemoore, California. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, and 120-108. Ward, 24, a 2004 Olympic Gold Medal winner for the U.S. in the light heavyweight division, totally dominated a good fighter in Buchanan, pounding him at will and making him look like a virtual novice in comparison.

Having seen Buchanan fight on several occasions, it was shocking to see how easily Ward handled this good fighter and making it look easy as Ward pummeled him with power shots. Buchanan looked confused for the most part with Ward’s constant changing of fighting stances, in which Ward changed from orthodox to southpaw every other round and kept Buchanan constantly guessing.

Ward, ranked #3 in the World Boxing Organization, #3 in the WBC, #10 in the WBA and #14 in the IBF, started off fast in the 1st round, attacking Buchanan fiercely with hard body shots and not giving him a break in between shots. Ward, who usually starts off more slower in his bouts, seemed uncharacteristically aggressive and looking as if he wanted to take Buchanan out in the 1st round.

However, Buchanan, a fighter with an excellent chin, took everything that Ward dished out and didn’t look hurt for instant or stressed out about taking a lot of one-sided punishment. Buchanan, however, failed to let his hands go and was content to just take punishment without trying to answer Ward with shots of his own.

The action stayed one-sided in rounds two through six, as Ward used Buchanan as a punching dummy, tagging him wherever and whenever he pleased, which as it turns out, was quite often. Ward continued switching back and forth from southpaw to orthodox from round to round.

Buchanan, a fighter with good offensive skills, surprisingly only attempted to land several punches per round and just looked like he didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t as if he was getting countered every time he would throw a shot, because he wasn’t getting fired back on every time he’d throw – That was happening anyway, so he might as well have let his hands go and made a fight of it. Unfortunately, he chose not to.

In the 7th round, Ward stepped up the power in his shots, seemingly making a move to try and get Buchanan out of there. However, Buchanan took everything Ward could dish out without flinching. He still wasn’t’ fighting back, though, and the fight was now completely boring because it looked like a sparring match.
In the 9th and 10th rounds, Buchanan finally started fighting back a little, landing an occasional right hand. He was still doing next to nothing but this was a vast improvement to the two to three punches he was attempting in the previous rounds.

In the 11th and 12th rounds, the fight went back to Ward doing all the punching, as Buchanan went back into his dormant stage. Buchanan did land a nice right hand rabbit punch, which he was warned about by the referee in the 12th, but that was about it.