By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO’s) will be fighting at home when he takes on Sakio Bika (28-4-2, 19 KO’s) next month at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. According to the latest boxing news talk, the Ward-Bika fight will be a non-Super Six tournament fight, but it will still be televised on Showtime for boxing fans to see.

Ward, 26, was supposed to be facing Andre Dirrell next, but Dirrell was injured from a foul in his last fight against Arthur Abraham on March 27th, and Dirrell is still feeling the after effects of the head shot foul and can’t continue in the tournament.

Bika, 31, has agreed to step in and fight Ward for the title but he won’t be part of any kind of replacement for Dirrell. It’s easy decision for Bika, because he hasn’t fought for a title for the past four years when he beaten by Joe Calzaghe in a fight that was ugly to watch because of all the fouls.

Bika will get his shot at Ward, and probably lose badly in the process of getting a good payday. This fight is interesting in that Ward and Bika are both very similar in style. Both of them are rough, and tend to beat up their opponents on the inside with occasional fouls and a lot of rough fighting.

Ward is one of those rare fighters that can dominate on the outside with his hand speed, jab and power shots or fight on the inside and maul his opponents like Bernard Hopkins.

I used to think that Hopkins was a rough inside fighter, but Ward is much worse. He’s a terror at close range, especially when he’s lowering his shoulder and bulling his opponents around.

Once he has a fighter on the ropes, they tend to stay there because he keeps them there with a combination of shoulders and shoves. Bika does a lot of the same things, only he tends to throw a lot more power shots than Ward.

Bika has better power, and is able to hurt his opponents in close. This is going to be a very interesting fight to see who the better fighter is in close range. My guess is Ward won’t even try to fight Bika on the inside, because for him to do that Ward will get hit a lot.

Ward was able to rough up Mikkel Kessler and Allan Green on the inside, because neither of them had an inside game. However, Bika does and he’ll be more than a handful for Ward if he chooses to go at Bika with that approach.