By Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) faces arguably the toughest fight of his career when he meets fellow American Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13 KO’s) on September 25th in their Super Six tournament fight. This is going to be a strange fight for Ward, because it will be like he’s fighting a mirrored image of himself in the young 26-year-old Dirrell. Ward and Dirrell are both amazingly fast of hand and foot.

Ward is the better inside fighter, whereas you have to give the talented Dirrell the edge on the outside due to his better hand speed and longer reach. However, it’s like they’re fighting a duplicate of each other because both Dirrell and Ward cancel each other out so well. Dirrell obviously is vulnerable on the inside, and that’s where Ward will likely try to fight him.

However, Dirrell is a quick learner and will adapt immediately to Ward’s inside game and may actually be the better inside fighter by the end of the bout. Dirrell hasn’t developed his inside game as well as Ward, because hasn’t needed to. With the kind of blinding Mayweather-esque hand speed that Dirrell has, there’s little point in taking the fight to the inside and toughing it out there.

But at some point in their fight on September 25th, Dirrell will have to prove that he can hang with Ward in close, because that’s where Ward will likely insist on the fight taking place. Dirrell won’t be foolish like some of Ward’s recent victims and just let Ward fight him in close proximity. Dirrell is going to be moving away from Ward’s traps, and not letting him work on the inside.

I see the fight being a lot like Ricky Hatton vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. with Dirrell being Mayweather. If Dirrell lets Ward work inside, then he’ll likely have a great deal of problems until he figures out how to fight in close or unless he gets away quickly. If Dirrell proves to be too skillful to be trapped in close, Ward will then have to morph into the lightning quick outside sharp shooter that took apart Mikkel Kessler last in November.

Ward was able to pick Kessler apart from the distance, cut both of his eyes and had him on the verge of being stopped when the referee stepped in saved Kessler from being knocked out by pulling the plug on the fight due to his cuts. Had the fight gone on for much longer, I suspect that Ward would have stopped Kessler outright.

What makes Ward so good is that he’s able to fight remarkably well both on the outside and the inside. Dirrell isn’t versatile as Ward, at least not yet. We’ll see how much improvement Dirrell can make in this fight in that area. Dirrell had problems with Carl Froch in their fight last year when Froch was fighting Dirrell on the inside. However, figured Froch out eventually and staggered him a couple of times in the 10th. By the time the fight ended in the 12th, Dirrell was pounding Froch.