By Jim Dower: Making only his fourth appearance since 2011, unbeaten former super middleweight world title holder Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) took care of business tonight in beating #1 IBF light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera (17-1, 12 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in Ward’s first fight against a true 175lb fighter at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
What we learned tonight was that Ward can only win one way at light heavyweight. He can only out-box his opponents. What little power he had at 168 didn’t travel up with him to his new weight class at light heavyweight. What this means is that Ward is going to have to try and out-box the big sluggers like Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson and Artur Beterbiev. Ward won’t be able to knock them out, and it might be dangerous for him to even try. Ward will have one way of beating all of those fighters, and that’s to try and use his boxing skills to nick rounds. It’s going to be awfully hard for Ward to beat the top fighters in the division when he doesn’t have the power to match-up.
Barrera was knocked down in the 3rd round by a left hook from Ward. In the 8th, Ward lost a point for a low blow. The crowd didn’t like the point deduction, but the referee seemed to think it was necessary to take the point off.
Ward won by the scores of 117-109, 119-109, 117-108. This wasn’t the dominating version of Ward that we’d all known from the past. The newer version of Ward is slower, and not the guy that easily beat guys like Chad Dawson and Edwin Rodriguez. The Ward saw tonight did all he could to nick rounds against the older, stronger 34-year-old Barrera. Ward won the fight, but it was not the kind effort that suggests that he’s going to be able to have a long run at 175 as a top guy. While the scores were wide, it was not a dominating performance.
Barrera was landing some nice shots, but he was wide open much of the time.
Barrera was getting caught by left hands from Ward when he would go on the attack. The shots didn’t stop Barrera in his tracks, as he was able to walk through Ward’s shots. However, the judges were impressed enough with Ward’s punches to give him many of the rounds.
Ward will be facing champion Sergey Kovalev this year, although not next. Ward says he wants to get in another fight before he faces Kovalev. This is going to be a next to impossible fight for Ward to win because Kovalev is taller, has longer reach, and a better jab. Kovalev is also a much better puncher, and he attacks in a fierce way like a giant wave. As we saw tonight, Ward still likes to do a lot of holding when his opponents get in punching range. However, he’s not going to be able to tie Kovalev up all night long. Kovalev will get to Ward over and over again, and he’ll land his much harder shots to the head and body. The judges will have a hard time not noticing Kovalev landing the better shots in each round, even if the fight is staged in Ward’s hometown of Oakland. I don’t think Kovalev will ever agree to fight Ward in Oakland, however. The fight will likely take place in the east coast rather than in Oakland.
Ward is pure finesse at this point in his career. He’s like a slower more limited Floyd Mayweather Jr. The problem is Ward will be fighting a huge puncher in Kovalev later this year, and he’s not going to be able to steal rounds fighting the way he did tonight. Ward will need to be able to stand in the pocket and fight Kovalev, and I’m not sure that he can do that. The Ward that we saw tonight won’t be able to hang with Kovalev. Ward is going to need to go on a weight lifting kick, and then try and learn some tricks that he can use to keep Kovalev from getting his shots off. If that means holding, then so be it. Ward will need to do something for him to keep Kovalev off of him so he can win the fight. Ward loses to Kovalev right now if that fight happens unless the judges are more interested in scoring Ward’s lighter punches, which I don’t think they will.
***
Unbeaten #10 WBC featherweight contender Joseph Diaz (20-0, 11 KOs) battled hard to beat defeat Jayson Velez (23-2-1, 16 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision to hand him his second defeat on Saturday night on the undercard of the Andre Ward vs. Sullivan Barrera fight card.
The southpaw Diaz had swelling under his right eye from the shots he was getting nailed with by Velez. The scores were 100-91, 99-91, 98-92. Diaz landed the better shots throughout the fight, but he didn’t have enough power to hurt Velez. Each time Diaz would land a big left hand, Velez would come right back and continue to land right hands of his own, but without the same kind of power.
Diaz is fighting in a stacked featherweight division right now. He’s got a long ways to go before he’ll be ready to fight for a world title against the likes of Gary Russell Jr.
***
Light welterweight Maurice Hooker (20-0-2, 15 KOs) defeated Wilfredo Buelvas (17-6, 11 KOs) by a 1st round TKO. Hooker dropped Buelvas with a body shot. The fight was then stopped at 2:27 of the round. Hooker also put Buelvas down on the canvas earlier in the round.
***
Middleweight Aaron Coley (13-1-1, 6 KOs) defeated Urmat Ryskeldiev, (11-4-2, 7 KOs) by a six round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 8-56, 58-56, and 60-54.
***
2008 super heavyweight Chinese Olympian silver medalist Zhang Zhilei, (8-0, 6 KOs) defeated Tyree Ortiz, (5-3, 4 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout. The big 6’6”, 253lb Zhang knocked Ortiz down three times before the fight was halted at 2:44 of the round.
Zhang, 32, has a lot of potential. However, he’s going to need to hurry his career along if he wants to make something happen before he starts to age out.
Comments are closed.