By Allan Fox: Andre Ward’s fight against unbeaten highly ranked light heavyweight Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) is only eight days away for their fight on March 26 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
This is the moment of truth for the 31-year-old Ward. He’s going to show in this fight whether he’s got the power, size and enough left in the tank to compete in the 175lb division. Right now, we don’t know that Ward can compete at a high level at 175 because it’s a different animal from what he’s been doing at 168 in the super middleweight division.
It’s not just a question of the fighters being bigger and stronger at light heavyweight than the guys that Ward has faced in the past, but they’re also arguably more talented than the guys that Ward was fighting previously since he turned pro in 2004. The fighters that Ward was tangling with at super middleweight, guys like Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch, would likely be too small and weak to compete against the top light heavyweights like Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson and Artur Beterbiev.
Ward needs to prove that he can beat a fighter like Barrera to get a fight against Kovalev later this year. We could find out that Ward doesn’t have the size, power or the youth to get the job done. Ward’s career has been stalled out since 2011. That’s when he stopped doing anything special, and became a part-time fighter. If you look at Ward’s resume, his activity level went way down after 2011. He’s only fought three times five years.
That’s along the lines of someone like Mikey Garcia. That’s not nearly enough to stay sharp. We don’t know how much the years of inactivity has taken away from Ward’s game, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s at least 30 percent. The question is can Ward at 70 percent beat a fighter as talented Barrera?
Barrera has been active all this time, and he’s a natural light heavyweight. He’s not someone that has grown into the division due to a slowing metabolism brought about by age and inactivity . Barrera is a solid 175, and he’s been fighting all these years. He’s not been fighting great guys, but he’s at least been fighting. Ward has been out of it for ages since his comeback fight last June against Paul Smith. Ward didn’t look really great despite getting the win.
We’re probably going to see Ward throwing a lot of pot shots in the fight, as he’s not going to want to get hit by Barrera’s big shots. We can expect to see Ward move around, and maybe do a lot of holding if Barrera’s pressure becomes too much for him.
Barrera defeated Karo Murat in his last fight in stopping him in the 5th round. It was a good performance from Barrera, who was able to break Murat down and get the stoppage. That fight showed that Barrera has the power and talent to stop a guy with a good chin. Murat went the distance with Bernard Hopkins in 2013.
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