Andre Ward comes through Allan Green
Andre Ward calls himself “The Son of God”, a cocksure assertion if ever there was, and on Saturday night he put in such a comprehensive performance that the only way rival Allan Green was going to stop him was if he summoned a biblical plague of locusts, frogs and lighting to hurl at the WBA super-middleweight champion.
It was another spirited showing by Ward in his hometown of Oakland as he recorded a unanimous decision victory and remained the only undefeated fighter still in the competition.
As for “Ghost Dog” it was tough first day for the new kid, who lost a clean sweep of rounds on all three cards as he found himself outclassed in this scrappy affair. It was certainly not a banquet for the eye but the champion will be pleased to come through with the win and avoid a potential banana skin against the relatively unknown Green.
SOG has garnered a reputation of something of a prodigy as an all-rounder. In his previous match up with Mikkel Kessler, Ward kept to the outside and picked off his opponent with his superior hands speed. However he demonstrated his versatility on Saturday by taking the fight to the inside and nullifying the threat of Green’s primary weapon, his left hook, by stomping on any fire before it roared up.
From the opening bell a tone was set of exchange and clinch. Green more underdog than Ghost Dog, tried to turn aggressor but couldn’t connect. As a bigger hitter his best chance was to land a huge shot early and make sure the fight doesn’t go too far, but Ward was always quick to cull any danger by jabbing his way out of danger, before a well timed clinch stopped anything got too far.
Locking up became the order of the day as the two became more huggy than Starsky and Hutch’s main informant. Ward’s tactics were to clearly get Green on the ropes and stay out of his explosive shots, while landing his and he repeated this for the duration.
By the fifth round Ward’s clinch and hold technique was paying dividends as he was regularly landing body punches and staying out the way of an increasingly frustrated Green, who saw more rope than a sailor. On the off chance a combination was thrown a clinch came in before any proper rhythm was found as Ward dictated proceedings.
Ghost Dog has never been 12 rounds before and as expected he started to wane from about the sixth round in. Ward began asserting himself more and more, trying to press the jab and landing a higher volume of punches and catching Green with a flush combo in the seventh which had the ref asking if the contender was ok to continue.
Green may as well have given up because he was never going to score a knockout against the illusive Ward, despite his determination. From here on in it was more punch, clinch, jab and grab as Ward took the final rounds and the full scorecard. Not one for the purist, but a shift was put in.
Ultimately Ward is a clever fighter. He doesn’t have outstanding reach and so he needed to duck in to avoid getting tagged by a big hook from Green, hence his style in this fight. To some it may have seemed negative, people always want to see fighter go toe-to-toe, exchanging combos and big hits but you can’t always win pretty, the WBA champ did what he had to do and got the job done.
The only criticism you can direct at Ward is he lacks that knockout punch. If he had a big hit in him he would be a frightening prospect, but the former Olympic gold medallist will have to rely on building wins rather than scoring them early. The likes of Kessler, Carl Froch and Arthur Abrahams all have a KO in them somewhere and Ward will need to match that certainly in the later stages of this competition, when tension is high and fighters need to dig deep. SOG might be praying for a KO to rasp out of his gloves rather than knowing one will come.
As for Green he doesn’t look anything special on this showing, although you have to give him credit for stepping-up to this level with his limited experience against big names. He has the thankless task of Kessler next as well. When you have the likes of Lucian Bute and even Edison Miranda knocking about it seems a shame they went for Green. I wonder why they chose him? “Cough” Lou DeBella “cough”
Next up for Ward is fellow Andre, Dirrell. This should be an interesting mixture of styles as Dirrell fights a tactical game as well and we could end up with a chess-boxing spectacle.
There’s no doubt that going into the last round of fixtures Ward is still the man to beat. The other fighters are going to have to keep the faith if they think they can stop The Son of God. He seems to be on a higher plateau right now but Lord knows it’s far from over yet.
Tags: