barrera By Jeff Aranow: Shane Mosley sees Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) having a hard time with light heavyweight Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) this month in their fight on March 26 on HBO Boxing at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.

Ward is no longer fighting in the super middleweight division, as he’s moving up to the full weight for the 175lb division for this fight against Barrera, and he’s facing one of the hardest hitters in the division.

Mosley likes Barrera’s punching power, and he says he trains hard. Barrera, 34, trains out of the same gym as IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and he obviously is learning stuff from him all the time. Mosley notes that Ward isn’t fight all that often any longer, and he’s fighting one of the best guys in the light heavyweight division.

Mosley thinks Ward is a great fighter, but he still sees this fight and the Sergey Kovalev fight as very tough ones for Ward. Mosley doesn’t know who is going to win those fights. It’s hard to guess because Ward has been so inactive for stretches during the past five years. He’s also moving up to the 175lh division where the fighters hit harder than the ones Ward was fighting in the 168lb division.

“I like Andre Ward. He’s a great fighter, but he has a hard fight with Sullivan Barrera,” said Mosley via Fighthype. “It’s a hard fight with him. I know Sullivan. He trains hard, and he hits hard. It should be an interesting fight because Andre Ward hasn’t fought in a while, but I live Andre Ward. He’s probably one of the best. It’s a great match-up.”

During his best years, Ward like to smother and push his opponents up to the ropes where he would keep them there by pressing his upper body on them to keep them trapped. If Ward was getting worked over from the outside like in his fight against Carl Froch in 2011, he would take it to the inside and fight in close. However, now that he’s fighting bigger and stronger guys at 175, it’s unclear if Ward will be able to wrestle and smother his opponents like he did in the past. I can’t see Ward being able to do that with Sergey Kovalev because he’s simply too strong to be wrestled.

The same with Artur Beterbiev. Barrera looks equally strong and not someone who would be easily bulled to the ropes like Ward likes to do with his opponents. That kind of approach could get Ward hurt against a strong fighter like Barrera because he’ll be able to shuck Ward off of him and fire back hard shots to the head and body.

Speaking of the Sergey Kovalev vs. Ward fight, Mosley said “Kovalev hits hard, but Andre Ward can make it very hard to find him. If you can’t hit something, then Andre Ward can be victorious. He’s smaller, faster probably and he’s probably smarter. I don’t know; they have to get in there and do it though. Kovalev hits very hard.”

If Ward even struggles against Barrera, then that will tell you that it’s probably not going to go too well when he gets inside the ring with Kovalev in the near future.

Ward defeated super middleweight Paul Smith in his last fight in June of last year in a 9th round stoppage. Ward didn’t look strong in that fight despite the fact that he was able to get a stoppage win. Smith was able to land some nice shots throughout the fight. Ward was supposed to fight after that in November of last year on the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez card, but he pulled out of the card due to an injury to his knee. Ward was supposed to fight another super middleweight rather than a light heavyweight.

Ward could end up taking another tune-up fight if he can get past Barrera. With each tune-up Ward takes, he risks missing out on the Kovalev fight if he gets beaten. There’s no way that you can still put Ward in with Kovalev if he gets beaten along the way by Barrera or someone else.

Barrera doesn’t have Ward’s hand speed, but he is a big puncher and he’s very strong on the inside. I don’t think Ward is going to be able to use his grappling skills against Barrera in this fight like he’s done in the past with other opponents.