Goosen hoping Ward can take Mayweather and Pacquiao’s place at the top of boxing

By Boxing News - 06/19/2010 - Comments

Image: Goosen hoping Ward can take Mayweather and Pacquiao's place at the top of boxingPhoto credit: Tom Casino/Showtime – By Matt Stein: With both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao already fabulously wealthy and likely nearing the end of their careers very soon, promoter Dan Goosen is hoping that his young fighter World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) can move in and take over to fill the void left when Mayweather and Pacquiao hand up the gloves some day soon. For that to happen, Ward, 26, will have to beat his opponent Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) in their Super Six bout in Oakland, California.

Ward, of course, would then need to make it through the semi finals and then finals of the Super Six tournament to get to where he needs to be to become a potential mega star in the sport. However, tonight’s opponent, the hard hitting Green, will have a lot to say about whether Ward can make it to the next level or not. Green has a lot size at 6’2′, long arms and huge power in both hands.

Ward isn’t nearly the puncher that Green is, so he has to land a lot more of his shots to equal one of Green’s. At the same time, Green brings a danger to the fight because he can end matters at a moment’s notice if he can land something big. There’s a very small margin of error when fighting Green, in particular early on in the fight when he’s fresh and at his best.

Ward has to stay out of the way of Green’s big swings, try to tire him out, and make it into the later rounds with a lead. If Ward can still be ahead of the fight late, he’ll have a great chance of beating Green by a decision. However, to get the level of Mayweather and Pacquiao, Ward not only needs to win, he needs to win impressively. He can’t just beat him by a close decision if he wants to get the attention of the boxing public. Ward is missing a couple of things that Mayweather and Pacquiao has going for them.

Pacquiao has great power, blinding hand speed and tons of aggression. He’s not afraid to get hit and is willing to make sacrifices to get his own shots in. This is what makes him so exciting to watch, and what wins him so many fans from all countries around the world. Mayweather not only has incredibly fast hands, but he’s also quite good at making his opponents miss and look bad.

He has great footwork, or at least he used to until recently. And perhaps best of all, Mayweather has a lot of charisma and is quite good at selling his fights with his gift of gab. He’s a good talk and seems to be a polarizing figure. There are those that love him and there’s an equal amount that seem to hate him. However, the ones that hate him still tune into his fights just to see if he’ll lose.

So far, Mayweather hasn’t and has frustrated the fans that want to see him lose. Ward is more quiet, and lacks the charisma that Mayweather has going for him. Perhaps it’s something that Ward, who comes from Oakland, California, can learn to do by being more vocal about what he intends to do in the ring instead of being so respectful of his opponents all the time.



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