HBO rejects Andre Ward vs. Dimitri Sartison

By Boxing News - 08/10/2013 - Comments

sartison653556By Dan Ambrose: HBO has said no to a proposed fight between WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) and former WBA super middleweight champion Dimitri Sartison (30-2, 18 KO’s), according to Fightnews.com. Ward’s management had a deal made with Sartison’s team, but they were unable to go ahead with it after HBO rejected the fight.

What’s surprising is that Ward’s promoter made the effort to put the Sartison fight together, because it’s been common knowledge that HBO wasn’t interested in televising the Ward-Sartison fight. You can’t blame HBO, because it would make for bad television when you know it’s going to be a mismatch going in. Of course, HBO has a mismatched scheduled next month with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. facing Brian Vera.

I guess the difference in that mismatch and the Ward-Sartison mismatch is that Chavez Jr. brings his own fan base, and he doesn’t need to be matched against anyone of quality for him to bring in good ratings. That’s what it’s all about.

With Ward, he actually needs a good opponent to draw big ratings, and Sartison is certainly not that. He’s a decent fringe level contender, but that’s about all you can say about the guy. Sartison’s been beaten by guys like Karoly Balzsay and Mikkel Kessler in the past. He took bad beatings in both of those fights.

Ward’s promoter Dan Goosen needs to get with HBO to discuss who exactly they want to see Ward face. At least if he has a list he can work off of, he can contact those fighters’ promoters and try to put a fight together. In the absence of that, Goosen is flying blind in terms of trying to find an opponent that HBO will say yes to.

Hopefully, HBO doesn’t say we want Ward to fight Kessler and Froch, because those two fighters aren’t eager to face Ward after having been beaten by him in the past. Edwin Rodriguez would be good, but he reportedly won’t be available until later this year, if then. It’s unclear whether Rodriguez would even take a fight with Ward, because he has a better option if he goes after WBC champion Sakio Bika.



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