By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) will be taking on the toughest opponent in many years next month when he faces unbeaten Cuban Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) on March 26 in a 12 round fight on HBO from the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.
Ward might not want to admit it but Barrera is easily the best opponent he has faced since his fight against Carl Froch in 2011, and he might even be a better fighter than Froch. Barrera certainly is a better boxer than Froch, and he has better defense and a superior inside game.
Ward is a little younger than the 34-year-old Barrera, but the two of them are roughly the same age due to Barrera having been active in the last four years of his career and Ward largely inactive since his win over Froch in 2011. Ward has fought only three times since his win over Froch in fighting once in 2012, 2013 and 2015.
You can blame Ward’s inactivity on his promotional and injury problems. Nevertheless, even with Ward’s promotional problems behind him, he is still dealing with injury issues. Ward pulled out of a fight last November on the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez card due to a knee problem.
Power: Barrera overwhelmingly has the better power compared to Ward. Barrera is a huge puncher, and his power compares to that of Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson. He doesn’t have Kovalev’s relentless attacking style, which is why he doesn’t have the same KO percentage as the Russian fighter. Barrera does have punching power that is comparable to Kovalev. Ward comes in far behind Barrera in the power department, and I don’t see him ever catching up to him.
Speed: This category goes to Ward. He’s definitely faster than Barrera, but not that much faster. Ward was very fast earlier in his career. The combination of inactivity and age seems to have slowed Ward’s hand speed a little. He doesn’t look like the same fighter that defeated Mikkel Kessler in the Super Six tournament in 2009. The years have dulled Ward’s speed. At this point, I don’t think Ward has enough of a speed advantage for it to help him.
Experience: The experience goes to Ward. He’s fought guys like Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Sakio Bika, Edwin Rodriguez, Chad Dawson and Edison Miranda. Ward beat all those guys and looked good in doing so. The only real experience that Barrera has is his fight against Karo Murat last December in stopping him in the 5th round.
Defense: Ward is the far better defensive fighter compared to Barrera. Even with his long layoff from the ring, Ward still looked very skillful in beating Paul Smith last year in June. Smith rarely connected with his power shots. He did land one big right hand in the seventh round that briefly shook Ward up. However, other than that one big blow, it was all Ward in that fight. He did a great job of making Smith miss with his shots.
Activity: We already discussed how Ward stopped being an active after the Froch fight in 2011. Barrera has been by far the more active fighter, and I think that is going to help him in this fight.
“We as a team had a tough choice to make – crash the party by taking out Ward first or wait for the mandatory and take out (Sergey) Kovalev,” said Barrera. “We decided that the time is now. Ward will fall first, and then we will go after the belts.”
Barrera wants to beat Ward, and then face IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev to take his titles from him later on this year. Ward is supposed to be the one facing Kovalev in November on the 19, but if Barrera beats Ward, then he will be the one that will swoop into position for that fight.
It is difficult to imagine that Ward will stay active beyond his next two fights. His pattern has been to stay out of the ring, and that is what I see happening with him. I’ll be surprised if Ward fights Kovalev in 2016. I can see the fight being put off until 2017 due to Ward suffering some kind of injury that requires that he stay out of the ring to slowly heal.
If Ward does defeat Barrera and Kovalev, I see him receding back to his inactive period again where he stays out of the ring for a prolonged period rather than using the wins as a catapult to bigger fights.
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