By Scott Gilfoid: Showtime has picked an excellent choice for WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward’s next fight on November 27th at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Instead of signing on contenders like Brian Magee, Dmitri Sartison and Daniel Geale to face Ward, they’ve gone and chosen a rough and tough inside fighter in 31-year-old Sakio Bika (28-4-2, 19 KO’s).

This is going to be a great fight because it will allow Ward to showcase his massive skills for the world to see. Bika is a really good inside fighter in the Bernard Hopkins mold. He’s very tough to fight in close because of his power and his tendency to fight a little dirty at times.

Ward is very similar to Bika, only he’s a lot faster, and not as hard a puncher. Ward also is a better outside fighter than Bika. He doesn’t depend completely on fighting at close range the way that Bika tends to do. Ward likes to take advantage of fighters that have no inside game, like Allan Green and Mikkel Kessler.

Neither of those fighters had any real skills on the inside, and Ward took advantage of that by dominating both of them in his two previous fights in the Super Six tournament.

Ward is already guaranteed a place in the semifinals of the Super Six tourney because of the four points he’s picked up in his two fights, and his extra two points he received for the forfeit of Andre Dirrell, who was supposed to have been Ward’s next Super Six tournament opponent.

The Bika fight will enable Ward to pick up more fans by showing what an amazing fighter he is and give him a chance to show different areas of his game. Bika is going to lose and lose badly. But he’s going to make it interesting by trading with Ward at close range and turning the fight into a war. Unfortunately for Bika, he won’t have the fast hand speed or the defensive skills needed to beat a talent like Ward.

Bika does good against some fighters, but struggles against fighters with good boxing skills like Lucian Bute and Joe Calzaghe. Bika did a decent job against Calzaghe, and had him flustered early in the fight with his tough inside game. Ward won’t be bothered in the least by Bika’s inside tactics. Ward will give him the shoulder, and maybe the head, and back him up to the ropes where Ward will punish him with huge shots.