By Jason Kim: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) will be taking part in the stage 3 part of the Super Six tournament against replacement fighter Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) next month on June 19th at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. The bout was recently postponed because Ward re-injured his surgically repaired knee while training. Green, 30, is stepping in for Jermain Taylor, who was knocked out in his first fight of the Super Six tournament against Arthur Abraham. Luckily for the tourney, there was a top fighter like Green waiting in the wings to step in and take Taylor’s place.

Green is incredibly fast with a lot of power. He might actually be an improvement over Taylor, even though Green has never actually proven how good he is by beating a top tier fighter. This is going to be a big step up for Green at an advanced age. He’s going to have to show a lot more than he did in his disappointing 10 round decision loss to Edison Miranda in 2007. Ward isn’t the type of fighter that will fold easily if he’s tagged on the jaw a couple of times. Green is going to have to be a lot busier than he was in the loss to Miranda three years ago.

Ward, 26, pulled off a huge upset by defeating Mikkel Kessler by an 11 round technical decision last November. Kessler was thought by many people to be the best fighter in the entire Super Six tourney, yet Ward defeated Kessler with ease, exposing Kessler’s lack of hand speed and inability to fight on the inside. The fight was so one-sided that many people walked away from the fight thinking that Ward could be the eventual winner of the tournament.

In looking at two previously unbeaten Super Six fighters Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch sustain losses in the stage 2 part of the tourney, there’s few people that would disagree that Ward could be the guy that’s standing at the very end of the tourney. However, Ward will have to get by Green first and figure out how to neutralize his speed and power. It’s not going to be easy, because Green is a very dangerous fighter when he’s fighting with confidence.

He talks like a very confident fighter, but in his bouts against Miranda and Tarvis Simms, Green looked very uncomfortable and anything but confident. Perhaps he’s improved since those fights and learned from them. He better hope so, because the Green that I saw in those two bouts would likely get badly schooled and probably stopped by Ward. It doesn’t matter if Green has the better power and speed; if he’s not going to use it then he’s going to get dominated by Ward next month. Green has got to be busy and be the one who gets his shots off first. He can’t wait for Ward to throw his punches first, because Ward is very fast two and he could end up hurting Green if he can land some of his big shots.