By Jason Kim: Super middleweight contender Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO), as expected, made short work of Shelby Pudwill (22-4-1, 9 KO) tonight, stopping him in the 3rd round of a stay busy fight at the at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, CA. Also on the card, former super middleweight champion James “Lights Out” Toney (72-6-3, 44 KO) destroyed Matthew Greer (12-6, 11 KO) in the 2nd round of a scheduled 10-round bout.
Ward, 25, had his way with Pudwill, hitting him with stinging jabs and combinations and rarely getting hit in return. After easily winning the first two rounds, Ward knocked Pudwill to the canvas with a left hook to the head in the 3rd round. Pudwill got to his feet, his left bleeding like a running faucet. Ward then teed off on Pudwill with power shots until the bout was stopped by referee Pat Russell at 2:16 of the round.
Ward focused many of his shots on Pudwill’s midsection in the opening round and hit him with a number of big body shots. Ward seemed to be loading up with every shot as he looked to be trying to make a statement by knocking Pudwill out. This allowed Pudwill to catch Ward with some nice shots in the 1st round. Ward threw very few combinations in the round as he mainly put his emphasis on landing single big shots to the head and body. Ward landed a couple of nice uppercuts in the round but spent most of the round focusing on landing to Pudwill’s body. A couple of Ward’s punches strayed low leading to two warning from referee Pat Russell to keep his punches up.
In the 2nd round, Ward began to put even more on his shots as he went for broke trying to score a quick knockout. He landed a number of blazing fast punches which Pudwill took full in the face, looking as if he never even saw the punches coming at him. Ward looked relaxed for the most part, as if it were a sparring match. He easily was able to get out of the way of a lot of Pudwill’s attempts at landing and countered him well. Near the end of the round, Ward landed a nice four punch combination to the head, which he finished with a left uppercut. Pudwill was able to land a few decent combinations from time to time and looked very good, considering who he was up against.
In the 3rd round, Ward ripped away at Pudwill with powerful combinations to the head and body, doubling up with big left hooks. Late in the round, Ward cornered Pudwill and hurt him with a right hand to the head and then dropped him with a left hook to the head. Pudwill got to his feet at the count of seven with his left eye bleeding badly. Ward then tore into Pudwill with huge combinations driving him accorss to the ring to the ropes where Pudwill attempted to cover up and block the shots. His was was a bloody mess at this point and he was no longer doing much to fight back. In between throwing punches, Ward looked at referee Pat Russell and urged him to stop the fight. Russell immediately obliged and stepped in and put a stop to the bout at 2:16 of the round.
Ward looked very impressive in the fight. Ward will now participate in the Showtime Super Six tournament starting on November 21st against WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler in the first part of the group I competition. Kessler, 30, also fought earlier tonight in Denmark, stopping Gusmyr Perdomo in the 4th round. In comparison to Kessler, Ward looked a lot better tonight in his performance compared to how Kessler did against Perdomo. However, Pudwill was a much lesser fighter than Perdomo.
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Heavyweight contender James Toney (72-6-3, 44 KO) took little time in dispatching Matthew Greer (12-6, 11 KO), taking him out in the 2nd round. Toney, who weighed in at 217.5, his lowest weight in six years, rained speedy punches on Greer and quickly knocked him down with a left hand to the midsection in the 1st round.
Toney, ranked #11 in the WBC, continued to hit Greer with a variety of punches into the second round until the bout was stopped at 2:33 of the round. The win was an important one because it leaves the 41-year-old Toney in the running for a shot at World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in the future.
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