By Scott Gilfoid: Now that Carl Froch has been relegated to the slag heap, WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) is ready to get down to serious competition in the super middleweight division. IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (29-0, 24 Ko’s) would seem like the ideal next fight for Ward, but he said yesterday that he wants to wait until Bute has finally proven himself by facing an A level fighter before he’ll waste time on him. Showtime will no doubt work hard in trying to convince Ward to the fight with Bute because this is the fight that they’ve been waiting for.

But you really have to see this from Ward’s side. He’s just gone through a grueling tournament over the course of two long years and has had to beat one A level fighter after another to get to this point. He doesn’t want to just hand a Bute a fight when the guy hasn’t fought anyone of real quality since his bout with Sakio Bika four years ago. Bute should at least have taken on and beaten someone like Peter Quillin or Kelly Pavlik. The other problem with Ward facing Bute is the venue. Ward sure as heck isn’t going to travel to Canada to risk getting jobbed out of his titles over there.

We almost saw Ward fight to a draw against Froch last night when two of the judges decided that Froch had won five rounds in a one-sided fight. Can you imagine what Ward would have to go through in Canada? He’d probably be lucky to win even one round despite dominating Bute like he did Froch. The only way a Bute-Ward fight makes money is if it takes place in Canada, and it won’t happen there because Ward isn’t crazy enough to risk his titles going over there and ending up on the receiving end of a hometown decision. And I doubt Bute will want to travel to Ward’s home city of Oakland, California, even though he would be given a fair deal there.

With Bute out of the picture due to venue and problems with his low quality opposition, the only guy remaining is Anthony Dirrell (24-0, 21 KO’s). He’s Ward’s WBC number #1 challenger and recently stopped Renan St Juste in the 4th round to earn the shot against Ward. Dirrell, like his older brother Andre, has amazing hand speed and excellent power. He’s not as good defensively as Andre Dirrell and he also doesn’t move nearly as well. But Anthony does have just as good power and is more willing to mix it up. He doesn’t mess around and he tends to go right after his opponents.

With his Dirrell’s power, hand speed, and pinpoint accuracy, he’d give Ward a lot more problems than Froch did. I don’t know who will win this match-up because Dirrell is still an unknown because he hasn’t fought a lot of high visibility fights. All I know is he took apart a very good St Juste in his last fight earlier this month and was hurting him at the time the fight was halted due to St Juste injuring his left shoulder. I think Dirrell might be even more of a threat to Ward than Bute because of his superior hand speed and power. Dirrell hits harder than Ward and is an excellent inside fighter.