Photo Rich Hundley /SHOWTIME: By Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO’s) defends his title against 31-year-old Showtime replacement fighter Sakio Bika (28-4-2, 19 KO’s) this Saturday night in a split Showtime doubleheader with Carl Froch facing Arthur Abraham in the other fight in a different location. Ward, 26, will be facing in front of what will likely be a sellout crowd of 10,000 fans at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.

Ward doesn’t care how many fans show up to see the fight, saying “Whether there are two or 100,000 fans in the stands makes no difference to me because I will still come in here to do my job.” Ward is expected to trounce Bika and send a message to the other Super Six tournament contestants Froch, Abraham and Glen Johnson.

With Andre Dirrell out of the tournament, Ward is now arguably the most talented fighter in the Super Six tourney and the one that’s expected to win the entire tournament. If you look around on internet boxing forums, you’ll notice that there are a lot of jealous fans who dislike Ward because he’s fought both of his Super Six tournament fights at home and is dominating his opponents with ease. These fans seem to think that Ward is only winning because he’s fighting at home, which isn’t.

Some fans dislike the fact that Ward doesn’t get hit a lot, and they seem to think it’s a badge of courage to get wailed on. Ward has this to say about not getting hit: “I step up and show what they’re dealing with in the ring. I am a fighter that doesn’t take a lot of punishment. Like Floyd Mayweather.”

Ward does remind me a lot of Mayweather with his amazing hand speed, his ability to avoid punishment and the way that he likes to land powerful pot shots to dominate his opponents.

Bika is way over his head in this fight, and he’s going to get beaten worse than he did in his losses to Joe Calzaghe and Lucian Bute. Ward is better than those fighters and he’s going to show how much better he is by dominating Bika with ease on Saturday night.