By Allan Fox: Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) will be fighting on July 9 or 16h in a tune-up fight to get him ready for his important title shot against Sergey Kovalev in November. Ward’s fight in July will be in his hometown of Oakland at the Oracle Arena, according to Dan Rafael. This is the 32-year-old Ward’s interim fight.
Ward’s promoters at Roc Nation Sports attempted to get #7 WBC Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (16-0, 13 KOs) for him to fight, but the money wasn’t right so the fight didn’t get made. If Ward can’t get an opponent for him to fight in July, then he might need to wait for the Kovalev fight in November on HBO PPV. That’s bad for Ward obviously and very good for Kovalev, because it would mean even rustier Ward than he already is.
It’s to help him get sharp for what he’s going to be dealing with when he gets inside the ring with the “Krusher” Kovalev. It’s regrettable that Ward isn’t getting another tune-up fight to get him further prepared for Kovalev because just fighting twice in the last three years is going to make it tough for Ward to get all the rust out from years of inactivity.
Ward didn’t look that good in his last fight against Sullivan Barrera last March in Oakland. Ward won the fight by a 12 round decision, but he did very little on offense other than jabbing and landing single shots when Barrera would come on the attack. It was one punch from Ward and then Barrera was in close throwing shots.
For boxing fans not familiar with Ward in how looked earlier in his career when he was fighting in the Super Six from 2009 to 2011, he lost a lot from his game. He’s nowhere near the fighter he was back in 2011, and that’s not good for him. Ward obviously is daring to be great by taking on Kovalev, but he doesn’t have the offensive fire power to compete against him. If all Ward can do is throw a single shot while Kovalev is coming forward, it’s going to be impossible for him to stop the Russian fighter.
Kovalev will be fighting around the same time as Ward in facing the highly ranked #4 WBC Isaac Chilemba on July 11 in in Ekaterinburg, Russia. It’s the perfect opponent for Kovalev because Chilemba is very defensive just like Ward, and you can argue that he’s even better defensively than Ward.
Ward is going to have a tough time dealing with Kovalev’s punching power, size and nonstop punching style. This is not a style that Ward has faced before. He did fight former super middleweight champion Carl Froch in 2011 and beat him by a close decision, but Froch didn’t have the straight power punching ability that Kovalev possesses. Froch also didn’t have the same inside skills that Kovalev has. Ward will be dealing with a much tougher opponent than he did against Froch, and it’s going to take everything he’ got to win this fight.