By Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) is starting his first day of training today following shoulder surgery on his right shoulder. Ward, 29, recently injured his shoulder while training for a fight against Kelly Pavlik. The injury wiped out that fight and made it necessary for him to have surgery to repair the problem. Everything is good now, though, and Ward is back today to get back in shape.
Ward doesn’t have a scheduled fight as of yet. He could wind up facing his WBC mandatory challenger Sakio Bika in his next fight unless something bigger and better comes along. The problem that Ward has is there aren’t any of the top super middleweights that are willing to fight him right now. Ward kind of has to settle for just facing the existing contenders in the division, and there are honestly only a small handful of them that have any talent to speak of.
Ward wants to fight rematches with Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler, but getting them in the ring has been next to impossible because they seem more interested in name dropping Ward’s name than they do in fighting him. Ward just wants them to shut their yaps if they’re not interested in fighting him because he’s sick of hearing them say his name without getting in the ring with him.
Ward’s injury doesn’t mean that he’ll need a tune-up fight when he does come back. He’s too good for that, and it’s not needed. He can face Bika if that’s all there is for him. It would be a little more interesting to see Ward defend his titles against the James DeGale and/or George Groves, but I kind of doubt that either of them would say yes to a fight against Ward, even though they’d be getting a world title shot in facing him. I think if Ward extended the offer to them, we’d hear a quick chorus of “no thanks” from them.
Ward defeated Chad Dawson by a 10th round TKO last September. That victory for Ward probably scared off anyone that was considering a fight with him because Ward was simply out of this world with his performance against Dawson. That kind of victory tends to scare off opponents because they won’t want to end up getting schooled like that in front of the entire world. Ward is just simply too good right now, and few fighters want to be on the receiving end of a whipping by him.
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