Re: How would you rate Ward's resume?
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Originally Posted by
Memphis
Outstanding record. You're always going to get plums like Miles who want to belittle what people have achieved but his record speaks for itself.
If there was a single champion that Ward was yet to topple everyone would be pissing their pants at how amazing he's been in getting there and in so few fights. As it is he's pretty much beaten everyone so it starts to work against him and all that's left to do is slag him off.
There are fighters that Ward should be fighting now. Instead all he wants are tune up fights. Ward had the easiest time in the super six and fought limited fighters. Froch has shown how to beat Kessler fairly, but Ward simply butted him into submission. Ward beat Froch, but Froch can do a lot better than he did.
I really don't see the big deal with Andre Ward and once he steps up to LHW, there are plenty of names, and several with a fair shot of beating him. Kovalev would likely bounce his chin all over the canvas.
Re: How would you rate Ward's resume?
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Originally Posted by
Cressa121
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Originally Posted by
p4pking
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Originally Posted by
Rantcatrat
It is very good. It merits his p4p mention. I would caution that to consider it great one necessarily rates Froch and Kessler highly, as they are his two most significant wins.
Froch's resume arguably is close to as good as Ward's, but he'll always be a step behind in ranking because he lost to Ward and he lost to Kessler in their first fight. However, Froch has wins over Pascal, Bute, Andre Dirrell, and Kessler too, the first three of which Ward doesn't have. I know some people thought Froch lost to Dirrell, but at least Froch fought Dirrell. We don't know what would have happened had Dirrell fought Ward.
Where does Ward go now? There doesn't appear to be anyone else at super middleweight for him to face. There are a bunch of contenders at 175 in Stevenson, Kovalev, Hopkins (GB), and the Pascal/Bute winner, but if he doesn't need to step up in weight, should he do so and take the additional risk?
GGG is a potential future foe, but GGG has a stacked division to take care of first. I'm not sure why he would jump up to face Ward now, when he could take on the other top guys at middleweight first.
Dirrell is a basket case, who says he wanted to fight Ward at any point? It would have happened if the super six had panned out differently, and I'd agree that's a hard style for Ward but he's so much tougher upstairs. Bute for all we know was fairly content being fed mid level guys in his backyard until the Froch beatdown, you don't think Ward would've taken that fight instead? He's in a bad spot because guys he beats are still worth a lot more money than he is, it's hardly a knock on his resume surely.
Agreed. Ward-Dirrell was scheduled before Dirrell pulled out of the Super 6, iirc that was when Green stepped in as Dirrell's replacement. Since then he's become an irrelevance because of a lack of activity. There wasn't really a window for Ward to fight Bute either as Bute fought Froch a few months after Froch-Ward. It can't be a knock on Ward that those 2 fights didn't happen.
Not a knock on Ward, but it doesn't change the fact that Froch has wins over Bute and Dirrell, and Ward doesn't.
The main question we've been asking for the last year is where does Ward go from here? Dirrell is out of the mix at 168 due to inactivity. Ward already beat Bika and Froch, the other titleholders. The only other fight at 168 that Ward could take would be Anthony Dirrell, assuming he is actually fighting these days, unless, of course, Groves beats Froch. After that, unfortunately, he doesn't have much choice but to jump to 175.
