Mayweather Jr’s Defence and Mike Tyson’s Offense

By Alex Prodromou: All boxing fans think of fantasy match ups, but what about the ultimate fantasy fighter? The true greatest of all time. What skills would they possess? When we do see the undisputed greatest fighter ever, would they have Mayweather Jr’s defence and Mike Tyson’s offense? If that is the case which current boxer has a style similar to this? Your answer is Andre Ward.

He has the quickness, reflexes, smarts and defence that are all in Mayweather’s league. The only reason people don’t see this is because he uses more of a traditional guard as opposed to the Mayweather shoulder roll. However if you look closely, he has used the shoulder roll a few times when trapped on the ropes. He can also fight on the inside like Tyson, but because he doesn’t use the Mayweather guard, he can throw more punches on the inside and gradually wear you down. This is the only difference in Ward’s offensive skills when compared to Tyson’s offensive skills. He just doesn’t have the one punch knockout power Tyson had and because of this he has to wear you down round by round. However Ward can bob and weave like Tyson did, he can in fight like Tyson did. Because of Andre Ward’s sneaky quickness he can also use angles like Tyson did and get away with it.

This whole style that Ward possesses will have to change when he moves up to Light Heavyweight, because I just don’t think he’ll have the strength he has at Super Middleweight. Because of this, could the unbeaten Andre Ward at Super Middleweight just be the greatest ever?

Maybe because he is not like an unorthodox Roy Jones or like any other flashy unorthodox fighter. Andre has no obvious weakness in his boxing ability. He has no wholes that can be exploited. I think that because Andre Ward is so good at Super Middleweight he will adapt his style at Light Heavyweight and be considered a future hall of famer. I can see him unifying the titles at the Light Heavyweight just like Roy Jones did. I think he then could even move up to cruiserweight and win a title and then finally win a world title at Heavyweight and retire undefeated after fighting the best of the best and then go down in the history books as potentially the greatest of all time. Time will only tell whether this will happen or not.