By Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) had surgery last Friday to repair a tear in his right shoulder. The injury is now healing it should reportedly take between 4 to 6 months for it to head under the best case scenario. As long as there are no long problems while he’s recuperating from the injury he should be ready to go by the summer.
Ward injured his shoulder while training for a fight against former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavli. The fight, which was supposed to have taken place on February 23rd, has been canceled. When Ward does come back it won’t be against Pavlik.
Ward is interested in facing either Mikkel Kessler or Carl Froch in unification bouts, but it’s unclear whether either of them will be interested in facing him. I’ve heard both fighters say they’d like to fight Ward, but I’d be surprised if either of them actually in fact do.
Ward may have to settle for facing the winner of the Sakio Bika vs. Nicola Sjekoca. That’s not an interesting fight but it would be a fight where Ward would be facing his mandatory challenger and at least that would be out of the way.
The super middleweight division really doesn’t have a lot of guys that can really challenge Ward right now. The Dirrell brothers have been out of action for ages, and those guys are problems the two best fighters in the division next to Ward. Andre Dirrell should be back soon, but still waiting on Anthony Dirrell to heal up and get back in the ring.
Ward said on his twitter “Having surgery tomorrow morning at 6:30 am PST. Those who pray, please keep me lifted! I’m coming through this stronger than I went in.”
There’s no reason to believe that Ward won’t come out of this with a shoulder that is as good as new and ready to carry him to other big victories in the near future.
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