By Jason Kim: World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward (23-0, 13 KO’s) suffered an injury to his left index finger in his 12 round unanimous decision over Sakio Bika (28-5-2, 19 KO’s) last Saturday night at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California, according to fightnews.com. The injury may delay Ward’s next Super Six tournament fight against Arthur Abraham next year in March 2011. The fight still doesn’t have a venue, but Ward would like for it to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As for his injury, he says there is something floating around in his injured finger. Hopefully, it’s nothing that will require surgery to repair, because that could put the fight with Abraham off until later than March.

Ward wasn’t satisfied with his win over Bika, feeling that it could have been a better performance from him. It seemed as if Ward made the mistake of trying to prove that he could out-rough Bika on the inside, and although Ward did eventually prove to be the tougher fighter in that respect, he made the fight much closer by electing to fight Bika in a roughhouse style of fighting rather than boxing him the way that fighters like Joe Calzaghe and Lucian Bute had done. It may be that Ward didn’t want to be seen fighting a finesse style fight against a tough brawler like Bika. But it was a costly win for Ward, as he suffered cuts over both eyes and his finger injury is perhaps the worst. The cuts are expected to be healed by March 2011, but the finger could take longer.

The good news is that Ward has Abraham to fight next rather than Carl Froch or Glen Johnson. Abraham looked poor in getting dominated by Froch last weekend. This was the second consecutive fight in which Abraham has struggled with letting his hands go. He was also dominated by Andre Dirrell in June, and was beaten in that fight as well. Ward needs to use his boxing skills more for his fight with Abraham and resist brawling at all costs. He needs to stay fresh for the finals of the tournament and not use himself up against a guy like Abraham.