By Jim Dower: World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO’s) is likely to be facing #7 ranked IBF super middleweight contender Sakio Bika (28-4-2, 19 KO’s) next on November 27th, according to boxing news from Dan Rafael at ESPBN.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is currently working on putting the fight together and the 31-year-old Bika is interested in the fight, thankfully. Bika had the chance to be the replacement for Mikkel Kessler for a fight with Allan Green, but Bika said no.

Now, however, he’s interested because Ward’s WBA super middleweight title will be on the line and he’ll have the chance to capture the belt and make more money. It’s not likely Bika will beat Ward or even be competitive.

Bika is a good fighter, but he hasn’t shown the kind of boxing skills in his past fights that would indicate that he could beat a quality fighter like Ward. He might make it interesting if Ward decides to fight on the inside, because Bika is a grueling inside fighter and he tends to punish opponents in close.

The fight will likely be taking place in Ward’s home city of Oakland, California, where Ward has fought both of his Super Six tournament fights and beaten both of his opponents.

It’s unknown at this point if the Bika fight will be a Super Six bout or not. It’s not really needed, because Ward already has his semifinal berth wrapped up. There’s no point in this fight being part of the tournament if Bika would have no chance of making into the semifinals due to his lack of points.

Bika is coming off of a 1st round disqualification loss to Jean Paul Mendy in July. Bika had knocked Mendy down but got a little over eager and tagged him with another big shot while he was down. The punch knocked Mendy completely out cold. It wasn’t needed because Bika had Mendy badly hurt as it was and it’s not likely that Mendy would have made it out of the round.

Ward easily defeated Allan Green by a lopsided 12 round decision in his last fight in March. It was a total mismatch, as Green had no clue how to fight Ward on the inside and ended up taking a beating for 12 rounds.

Ward was supposed to be fighting Andre Dirrell in the stage 3 part of the Super Six tourney. However, Dirrell dropped out of the tournament recently due to neurological problems he’s been suffering since his 11th round disqualification win over Arthur Abraham in March.

Schaefer had this to say to ESPN: “We’re working on that. Bika is definitely interested in doing the fight. It’s not done, but it’s being worked on.”