By Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC super middleweight Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) is looking for the fight open to share the ring with him on June 2nd in his next fight at the Oracle Arena in Ward’s home city, Oakland, California.

Ward is pretty upset that IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) chose to fight Carl Froch on May 26th, as Ward told Sports Illustrated that he was in negotiations for a two-fight deal with Bute and his promoter at the time they opted to take on Ward’s recent victim Froch instead in a two fight deal.

Ward says he’d like to fight Sergio Martinez, but according to Sports Illustrated, there isn’t any interest from Martinez’s promoter in that fight. Ward said he has no interest in facing Bernard Hopkins or Anthony Dirrell. He thinks the networks wouldn’t be interested in the Dirrell fight. That kind of leaves Ward with a big hole in his schedule for June 2nd. The options are slim right now because of Bute signing on for the Froch fight. Ward could fight Edwin Rodriguez. That would be a good fight. I mean, it would be good before the fight starts, but once it starts, it would be bad for Rodriguez, because he’s not in Ward’s class. Other than Rodriguez, there’s Tommy Oosthuizen, Dyah Davis, and Peter Quillin at super middleweight. I can’t see any of them being willing to fight Ward, although on second thought, I think Davis would do it. Not sure there would be any interest from HBO or Showtime. Ward could also give up the super middleweight straps and look for a name to fight at light heavyweight. Ward said as much in the Sports Illustrated interview. He could then go after one of the top fighters at light heavyweight if he can find any good ones. I’d like to see Ward fight WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, but I just know that Cleverly wouldn’t take that fight in a million years.

Ward said to Sportsillustrated.cnn.com “Bute and his promoter were screaming and yelling that I was ducking them, then they go and mke a two fight deal with Froch where if he loses, he takes Froch back to Canada? I didn’t understand that.”

I do. Of course, Bute is going to take the lesser threat. He’s been doing that all along since he first captured the International Boxing Federation title in 2007. Bute is just keeping up with what he’s been doing since he got the IBF title. No big surprise there for me. Froch is clearly the easier mark, so Bute is simply going after the weak link to get another easy win before he HOPEFULLY faces Ward and gets whipped with ease. Bute could have fought Andre Dirrell, but he didn’t have any interest in that fight. I wonder why? Dirrell would have been a major problem for Bute because of his speed, one-punch knockout power and Matrix-like defense. Bute didn’t go for that, and wanted Froch all along. Well he’s got him but he’s not going to get much praise for beating him, because it’s already been done before. Bute is like an astronaut landing on the moon after another astronaut from another country was there first. It’s no big anymore.