By Eric Thomas: It has been reported by Dan Rafael in the latest boxing news from ESPN that WBA super middleweight champion Andre ward (21-1, 13 KO’s) will be postponing his April 24th stage 2 Super Six fight against once beaten Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) because his right knee is having some issues in training. This is the same right knee that the 26-year-old Ward previously had surgery on. The knee will have an MRI test conducted on it on Tuesday, but as of now, it doesn’t seem likely that surgery will be needed.
The outlook on the fight is it could take place in possibly June if the rehabilitation goes well. It would be terribly disappointing if Ward had to pull out of the Super Six tournament because of this injury. Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor had to pull out of the tournament recently after suffering a bad 12th round knockout loss to Arthur Abraham in his stage 1 fight.
If the tourney loses Ward, who defeated Mikkel Kessler by an 11 round technical decision in November, it would be a crushing blow. With Taylor and Ward, the remaining fighters would be Abraham, Carl Froch, Allan Green, Andre Dirrell and Mikkel Kessler. There would have to be a replacement picked to step in for Ward. Who knows who that might be, but it wouldn’t be someone as good as Ward that’s for sure.
Ward says that he started training with too much running and instead of working into it slowly, Ward overdid it and injured his right knee. His doctor, after examining Wards knee, advised him to rest and rehabilitate the knee for the next four to six weeks.
Andre Dirrell also sustained an injury recently, hurting his back while training and causing his fight with Abraham to be moved to March 27th. Hopefully, that fight isn’t further postponed. The April 24th date will still have the Super Six fight between Carl Froch and Kessler in Denmark.
Ward dominated Kessler in a shocking win in Oakland, California on November 21st last year. Ward not only beat Kessler, he totally dominated him, beating him like he’s beat some of softer opponents. Kessler later complained about a series of head butts that he received in the fight that caused cuts over both of Kessler’s eyes. After that win, Ward looked like a shoe in to beat Green in his fight in April.
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