(Photo credit: Tom Hogan – Hoganphotos) By Allan Fox: Unbeaten super middleweight champ Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) has reportedly signed a three-fight contract with HBO Boxing. The third fight of the contract will see the 32-year-old Ward fighting IBF/IWBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev for his titles near the end of 2016.
Ward is expected to be on the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight card next month on November 21st. One of the candidates that is being mentioned for Ward is #6 WBO super middleweight contender Rohan Murdock (18-1, 14 KOs).
Murdock would be moving up to 175 to fight Ward rather than the fight taking place at 168. That would be one of the two tune-up fights that Ward is said to be looking at. Ward has only fought twice in the past four years, so you can understand why he would want a tune-up.
Ward recently had a tune-up against Paul Smith last June in a mismatch fought at a catch-weight of 172lbs. Murdock is arguably a much better fighter than Smith, so this could be a little more interesting. He’s younger than Smith at 23, and he has better punching power, better stamina and he’s not likely to be out of shape.
Moving up to light heavyweight removes any chance of Ward fighting IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, but that fight doesn’t look like a makeable fight anyway due to Golovkin’s popularity skyrocketing and Ward’s still in a holding pattern due to his lack of fights and appealing opponents.
Golovkin just fought on HBO PPV last Saturday night in the headline fight against IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux. For his part, Ward is about to fight on the undercard of the Cotto-Canelo fight. That obviously shows you where Ward and Golovkin are right now. Golovkin is becoming a star, while Ward is about to fight on the undercard of Cotto-Canelo, possibly against the little known Murdock.
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez thinks that Ward will lose to Kovalev if/when they face each other in the fall of 2016. Sanchez sees Kovalev as too good right now, and too active for the likes of Ward.
Sanchez thinks a fight between Ward and Kovalev would have been a good one back in 2011 if it had taken place after Ward won the Super Six tournament against Carl Froch. But since then, Ward has fought only three times in beating Chad Dawson, Edwin Rodriguez and Paul Smith.
“I think Kovalev beats him,” Sanchez said to Fighthub about Ward losing to Kovalev in late 2016. “After the Super Six, when Andre ward busy, was active and was sharp, then I could say it’s a good fight. At this point, Kovalev is just on a roll and active an Andre is sitting back, waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to knock on the door and say ‘here’s a whole lot of money to fight,’ when you’ve fought only twice in four years. What would Kovalev do to Paul Smith?”
I think it would be really hard for Ward to defeat a fighter as good as Kovalev right now because it’s not a fight that Ward could win off of just jabbing. Kovalev has a jab that is arguably better than Ward’s, and he’s taller than him with better punching power in either hand.
Ward couldn’t grapple his way to a decision against Kovalev like he did in the Super Six against Froch. He’d have to actually fight him, and that would be a real problem due to Ward’s lack of punching power and his tendency to hold so much.
“First of all, Andre fought at 72 in his last fight and he’s talking about fighting at 75 for his next fight,” Sanchez said to esnewsporeting.com. “The second thing, when Andre signed with Roc Nation, they said he wants two tune-up fights. Golovkin’s team isn’t going to sit around for Andre Ward to make up his mind about what he wants to do. If we waited for Andre to make up his mind what he wants to do, we’re not going to be fighting. If we’re just going to be waiting for someone to make up their mind, then we’re not going to be in the ring and I don’t think that’s going to be fair to Golovkin,” Sanchez said.
Comments are closed.