By Chris Williams: For me, it’s not a question of whether or not WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) will beat Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s), it’s a question of how he’ll beat him when the two fighters mix it up in their Super Six tournament fight at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. My thoughts were that Ward was the fighter to beat going into the Super Six tournament and he’s pretty much proven me right as he totally dominated Mikkel Kessler last time out, beating him by an 11 round technical decision last November.
Ward has still only fought once in the tournament but you have to like his chances of winning the remainder of his stage fights because he has Green this Saturday and then Andre Dirrell in his final fight of the stage competition. Both of those should be fairly easy fights for Ward. However, the Green fight should be the easiest one of all, because Green just hasn’t fighting well recently and never really did look all that great earlier in his career.
He’s got a lot of attention because a lot of his fights have been shown on cable. However, Green has always been matched against guys that he could with the exception of the one time he was put in with a good fighter Edison Miranda. Green failed that test big time and lost a lopsided 10 round decision. There hasn’t been any other tests since that fight for Green, as he’s gone back to being put in with beatable fighters.
Ward would seem to have far too much skill for a crude slugger like Green. I honestly see Green as someone that is a level below Ward in talent. Green can punch a little, but he doesn’t set up his shots at all and takes wild swings when looking for a big shot. In watching his last three fights, Green often loaded up and threw what would looked like homerun shots. The punches weren’t set up with a jab anything. It was just Green looking to land a huge shot and reaching back and letting fly.
He’s mildly entertaining to watch for that reason but he’s very cautious and has looked timid when matched against decent quality fighters. Green will have to be a lot more aggressive against Ward if he wants to win. I doubt he will though. If this fight turns into a brawl, I would favor Ward in winning that kind of fight by early stoppage. If Green decides to lay back and box, then I see Ward possibly still stopping him around the 5th or 6th rounds.
There’s not much Green can do to survive this fight because he doesn’t have the boxing skills or enough power to end things early. If I was Green, I would come out looking early knockout and throw as many power shots as I can hoping to get lucky and stop Ward. If Green just holds back and lets Ward be first, then I think it will go really bad for Green. He’s basically in bad trouble no matter what he does and that’s why I think he would be better off trying to slug with Ward. At least by doing that, Green would have a small chance of winning.
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