By Scott Gilfoid: Recently Carl Froch made a pretty astute evaluation of Andre Ward’s style of fighting saying that he saw his style as being boring to watch, and he felt that would hinder Ward’s ability to become a huge star in the future. When I first heard Froch say this about Ward, my initial reaction was Froch had a bad case of sour grapes because of his one-sided 12 round decision loss to Ward in the Super Six finals last Saturday night.

However, I think Froch may have been right. Ward isn’t really exciting to watch because of his tendency to dive in and smother his opponents on the inside. He also spends a lot of time dodging shots, and he doesn’t look really exciting. But I think Ward is talented enough for him to make some tweaks in his fighting style to become a lot more interesting to watch.

I think Ward needs to sit down and watch fights of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Andre Dirrell, two of the most exciting fighters in boxing. I think Dirrell is a better fit for copying some of the things that he does in the ring because of his similar size and hand speed with Ward. What makes Dirrell so exciting is his speedy combinations and the way he explodes on his opponents with powerful shots.

Dirrell is also very good at ducking combinations from his opponents and he likes to make them miss and look bad. If you look at Dirrell’s fights against Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham, Dirrell ducked shot after shot from both fighters, even when they were throwing flurries. They couldn’t touch Dirrell with their punches and the crowd really got in to it. Dirrell’s short punches to the head remind me a lot of the short right hands and left hooks that Mayweather likes to throw.

I think Froch is right about Ward, and I think the best thing that Ward can do is study Dirrell and Mayweather’s fights and take in enough of their styles to improve his own style of fighting so that he can become a mega star and not just another champion.