By Dan Ambrose: It’s not looking good for Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) for his next fight on July 30 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. With only a little over six weeks to go before his next tune-up fight, the 32-year-old Ward still doesn’t have an opponent.
Last month, there were three names floated – Nathan Cleverly, Alexander Brand and Erik Skoglund – as potential options for Ward’s next fight. This is not a good sign that Ward will be fighting anyone good. Fighters normally don’t get high quality opponents six weeks out from their fights.
Unless Ward’s promoters at Roc Nation Sports are able to come up with a lot of money to lure a fighter to take the fight with him on short notice, it’s quite possible that we’ll see Ward fighting a poor opponent on July 30.
That’s all well and good for Ward, because it’ll help him look better to the fans, but it might hurt him in the long run when he faces Sergey Kovalev. The tune-up for Ward is supposed to help him get ready for the Kovalev fight. How can he do that if his promoters drag a stiff into the ring for Ward to bowl over on July 30.
Cleverly’s promoter Eddie Hearn says they’re going in a different direction towards a title shot against WBA World light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer for his next fight. That leaves the little known Skoglund and Brand in the running for the Ward fight. There may be someone else that winds up getting selected.
Whoever does get selected, it’s going to be tough on them given the little time they’ll have to prepare for the fight if Ward sticks with the July 30 date rather than moving it to August. The thing is, Ward needs to fight in July because his big pay-per-view match against IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev is expected to take place on November 19.
It’ll be too risky for Ward to fight in August or September, because that will be too close to the November 19 date. If Ward suffers a cut of some other kind of injury in his tune-up, it’ll likely lead to the fight against Kovalev being postponed.
I compete with this guy everyday!! #SOG pic.twitter.com/FNsoTmgs2c
— Andre S.O.G. Ward (@andreward) June 15, 2016
As far as Ward’s tune-up goes, perhaps his promoters at Roc Nation Sports are having problems with the negotiations for his tune-up opponent. You wouldn’t expect a tune-up opponent to be haggling for weeks and weeks in the negotiation process, but maybe it’s a good sign that the opponent still hasn’t been selected.
It might be that Ward will be fighting a good opponent. Brand and Skoglund are decent fighters, but neither of them is going to give Ward the kind of preparation that he’ll need to get ready for a KO artist like Kovalev. For Ward to get the proper preparation for the Kovalev fight, he would need to fight someone like Artur Beterbiev, Andrzej Fonfara or Eleider Alvarez.
Kovalev, 33, already has his tune-up opponent picked out for his next fight on July 11 in Russia. Kovalev will be defending his titles against the highly ranked Isaac Chilemba.