By Gav Duthie: There’s a lot of conversation on this site about the inactivity of Andre Ward 27-0 (14) and where that places him in the current pound for pound ratings. In this piece I’m trying to get to the bottom of Ward’s lack of ring time as well as discussing the success of the super 6 tournament which he won and the affect it has had on his career in particular.
Most would agree that Ward is one of he most skillful fighters on the planet. Even without a World title he is the dominant force in the Super middleweight division. Despite this he has only fought once in the last year against previously unbeaten Edwin Rodriguez, a pretty easy night in a list of many for Ward.
At present the world title holders in the 168lb division are
WBC – Sakio Bika
WBA/IBF – Carl Froch
WBO – Arthur Abrahams
In my opinion Andre Ward could have all these belts just now if he wanted them, not only has he beaten all these guys before, he beat them with relative ease so why should he fight them again.
Super 6
This brings me on to the Super 6 tournament, won by Ward when he outpointed Carl Froch in the final back in December 2011. All his wins over the above current champions came at some stage in his tournament.
In my opinion the tournament was a great success. The conception of it was very different to it’s application with half of the starting 6 pulling out. In reality this farce made the tournament a Super 9. There was also a lot of complaining about hometown decisions (Froch-Dirrell and Kessler-Froch), Carl even threatened to pull out after the Kessler fight despite the fact he lost comfortably in my opinion. Jermaine Taylor retired during it and Andre Dirrell suffered neurological problems after the Abraham fight.
Original competitors, including replacements
Andre Ward
Mikkel Kessler. Glen Johnson
Andre Dirrell. Sakio Bika
Jermaine Taylor. Allan Green
Arthur Abraham
Carl Froch
In many ways the super 6 was a mess but it achieved the only thing that matters and everything that boxing fans crave. It made the BEST fighters fight each other. In this environment Ward came out on top and had hardly had to come out of second gear.
Has Andre Ward been forced to have his career defining fights too soon by the super 6 tournament?
He has already beaten all the best guys in the division. Its been almost 3 years since the end of the tournament and since then he destroyed Chad Dawson in 10 rounds, the then 175lb number 1 and Edwin Rodriguez the next best thing at Super middleweight. I’m not surprised he is lacking in motivation. Let’s compare his career to that of Joe Calzaghe. Joe was 33 years old and 40-0 when he had his biggest fight against Jeff Lacy. Many felt Calzaghe had fought nobody his whole career and Jeff was a big favourite going into the bout. For me Joe showed how good he was that night and twice more in the twilight of his career in beating Mikkel Kessler and Bernard Hopkins. On the other hand Andre Ward was only 25 years old and a 20 fight novice when he embarrassed the divisions best Mikkel Kessler in a one sided contest.
Now at only 30 years of age he’s beaten the best around because he won the super 6. Now don’t get me wrong he should be fighting more. He could easily square up against he likes of Thomas Oosthuizen 22-0-2(13), Brandon Gonzales 18-0-1(10) or James DeGale 18-1 (12) but would these fights take him any further in his career, I think not. I hear people banging on that he should fight Sergey Kovalev 24-0-1(22) or Adonis Stevenson 23-1 (20) but why should he? They are light heavyweights, many fans think that moving up and down in weight is easy but going up 8 lbs to fight these guys puts Ward at a massive disadvantage. Bernard Hopkins 55-6-2 (32) also wants nothing to do with Ward because he knows he would lose. Then we have the middleweight division, Gennady Golovkin 29-0(26) has not really fought any of the top guys in is own weight class, never mind moving up to 168 lbs. He seems more interested in the 154lb category as he’s been calling out Canelo and Floyd Mayweather so that’s not really a viable option for Ward either. It’s obvious that Eddie Hearn doesn’t want to put Froch back in there with Ward so I would imagine Andre would be hoping Groves wins that showdown to give him a valid contender for his crown.
Its strange for a fighter to have done everything he needs to do in his career at such a young age. Mayweather’s still got Pacquaio, Wladimir wants to own all 4 titles and they are both in thre late 30s. Fighting those big fights so early in his career in the Super 6 has meant he has had little to aspire to recently. Everyone needs something to get out of bed for and at the moment I don’t think Andre Ward has that. He needs a legitimate challenge and fast before we all forget about him.
Comments are closed.