by David P. Greisman

Andre Ward will soon be facing one of the two best light heavyweights in the world, Sergey Kovalev. But first, Ward will be facing a foe who’s decidedly not.

Ward’s opponent on Aug. 6 on HBO is Alexander Brand, a 39-year-old from Colombia who is 25-1 with 19 KOs but is otherwise not anywhere near the top of the 175-pound division. Part of that is because Brand wasn’t even in the 175-pound division; he is a career super middleweight. Ward had plied his craft at 168 until recently.

But even at super middleweight, the best you could say about Brand is he’d lost the only time he stepped up, dropping a split decision in 2012 to Badou Jack back when the future titleholder was still just a prospect. Most recently, Brand edged unbeaten Medzhid Bektemirov by split decision last December.

Brand-Bektemirov came after Ward pulled out of a fight with Brand originally scheduled for last November on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view.

He’s been on the list before. Ward says nonetheless that Brand wasn’t atop the list of foes they wanted to face prior to Kovalev.

“We had a list of guys that we went through, and we started at the top. Not just picking the best guy on the list for the sake of picking him, but picking the guy that’s going to give you the work you need,” Ward said on a July 12 media conference call.

He recalled how his trainer, Virgil Hunter, would say that Ward is the best fighter in the world and only should face the top five guys. But, he said, “crazy circumstances” led to the best opponents not being available for this bout.

“Guys just were falling off, and I’m talking about undefeated contenders and prospects that had great opportunities and for one reason or another fell through,” Ward said. “I’m not going to name his name, but one guy fell through because he didn’t want to take the VADA testing.”

Virgil Hunter said that opponent was undefeated light heavyweight Erik Skoglund, according to boxing video channel Dontae’s Boxing Nation. Hunter also named Nathan Cleverly and said the former light heavyweight titleholder wanted too much money. And Dan Rafael of ESPN.com reported earlier in the year that Ward’s team and that of unbeaten prospect Vyacheslav Shabranskyy couldn’t come to terms either.

“It was just stuff like that,” Ward said. “We started to go down the list, and Brand was available, and Brand’s going to bring it. Don’t get me wrong. Irregardless of his age, he’s no bum. He’s the type of guy, he puts his head down and is doing to swing for the fences. Those are very dangerous guys. And to be honest with you, it’s easier fighting the top guys with more form and more technique than it is fighting a guy like this who lit has nothing to lose. It’s a fight I have to be on point with. That’s just how the cookies crumble. But just for the record, we fought hard to get some other guys, and they just fell through.

“He swings for the fences,” Ward said of Brand. “He loads up on a lot of shots. He doesn’t have a lot of nuance about him. He’s not trying to set things up. He’s just swinging hard. That’s what he does. He’ll try to move and get some space when he wants to rest and things like that. That’s why when he gets hit with a good shot or something like that, he’s able to survive. And he’s awkward.

“That’s something I’m going to have to overcome. I’m going to have to be disciplined. I’m going to have to be really determined just to let him do everything that he’s going to do, however he does it, and just stay locked in on hitting him and hitting him until the fight is over, and hopefully being the first to stop him.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com