By Jim Dower: Light heavyweight champion and #1 pound-for-pound king Andre “SOG” Ward’s contract with HBO Boxing has expired, and he’s now a network free agent. There’s some who feel that Ward may leave his promoters at Roc Nation Sports and join up with Top Rank.
Ward worked as a commentator for ESPN last Saturday night for Top Rank’s fight card headlined by Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo. Ward replaced Tim Bradley on the commentating team for that fight.
Ward, 33, had been with HBO for the last 5 years since his 10th round knockout victory over Chad Dawson on September 8, 2012. Ward has looked great since then in winning 6 fights in impressive fashion over the likes of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev [twice], Sullivan Barrera, Paul Smith, Alexander Brand, Paul Smith and Edwin Rodriguez.
Ward (32-0, 16 KOs) is still with promoters Roc Nation Sports. It’s unclear whether he’ll remain with hem for very much loner or what.
“I am still with Roc Nation 100 percent,” Ward said. “My contract is up [with HBO] right now so I am a free agent there.”
Ward was out of the ring from late 2013 to June 20, 2015 due to promotional issues with his former promoters. Ward losing 2 years of the prime of his boxing career obviously wasn’t a good deal, as he was on top of the world at the time that he stared his long layoff. When Ward came back in 2015 against Smith, he had clearly lost some hand and foot speed.
The speed hasn’t returned despite him working hard and winning 5 consecutive fights. Ward isn’t going to be the same fighter that defeated Carl Froch in the Super Six tournament in December 2011.
Ward still doesn’t have an opponent for his next fight this year. He last fought in June in beating Kovalev by an 8th round knockout. Ward wants to get one more fight in before the end of the year. He’s talked about wanting to fight former cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, but that fight might not be doable, being that Bellew is working on trying to setup a rematch against David Haye right now.
“My team is talking and working,” Ward said. “Options [for the next fight] will be presented in a couple weeks,” said Ward to espn.com.
Ward is the IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion. It’s going to be interesting to see if the IBF makes him fight a tough contender like Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev in his next fight. Bivol is ranked #1 by the World Boxing Association. However, the WBA has already ordered WBA World light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly to defend against him. Beterbiev is ranked #2 by the IBF, and #2 by the WBO. Kovalvev is ranked No.1 in the WBO’s rankings. I can’t imagine Ward fighting Kovalev a third time. They’ve already fought each other in back to back fights.
Ward could move up to cruiserweight, but there isn’t a big name waiting for him right not. Bellew seems to be interested in fighting a lucrative rematch with David Haye. That fight will make more money for Bellew than facing Ward. Bellew and Ward could face each other in the near future, but it’ll likely need to wait until after the Bellew-Haye 2 rematch.