By Cliff Rold
The Pride of the Bay Area, Oakland’s 2004 Olympic Gold medalist Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO), was a prohibitive favorite to keep the WBA Super Middleweight belt going into his bout with Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO). The odds seemed too lopsided prior to the opening bell.
Not so much once the bell sounded and the most one-sided affair of the “Super Six” got underway.
It will take time to establish fully whether Saturday night’s compete domination of Green was mostly a product of a bad Green or whether Ward has simply matured into a prime where all in and around his weight will struggle to be in his league. Ward has always been remarked upon for his maturity outside the squared circle. The maturity he showed in the ring last year against Mikkel Kessler to open the “Super Six” and now against Green bears heavy remark as well.
Let’s go to the report card.
Pre-Fight Grades
Speed –Ward A; Green B+/Post: A; B-
Power – Ward B; Green A-/Post: B; B+
Defense – Ward A; Green B/Post: A; C-
Intangibles – Ward A; Green B/Post: A; C-
As recapped in the post-fight report, the fight began when:
Ward popped forward with his left jab and then began to circle to his left, Green coming forward and snapping his own lead left. A right hand attempt measured the distance and Ward cautiously and deliberately continued to move. An attempted Ward jab to the body missed and Ward clinched; they were separated and the same sequence played out again. Holding his right hand to his face tightly, Ward blocked a testing left hook from Green and it wasn’t long before another clinch ensued. And then another, marked with a Green left uppercut to the body in the clinch and Ward with a short left hook to the head. The round closed with Ward falling short on a jab and Green missing counter right as Ward leaned away.
The Ward jab was again the first attempted blow in round two but an exchange of single stiff body shots followed. They went inside, grappling and digging, and referee Raul Caiz Sr. quickly ordered them apart. Following more inside work, both men were warned for straying low with their shots, Green getting the brunt of the warning. A Ward lead right in the final minute glanced off the face of Green and the challenger responded with a muffled left hook. Ward landed a right seconds before the bell in another tense if not overly violent frame.
They were clinching and hooking almost immediately in round three, the fight carrying the look of old black and white footage from the turn of the twentieth century, all holding and hitting with Ward using Green’s body to create leverage for his shots. Bulling Green into the ropes, Ward opened up more, digging left hooks and blasting with a right hand. Ward stayed on top of him, Green responding with unbalanced hooks and uppercuts while Ward cranked with full force. Green gave his corner a thumbs-up at the bell but it was Ward who had clearly advanced on the scorecards in the round.
Green tried a right over the top and a left hook, both missing, as round four got underway. Pushing Ward off of him in a clinch at mid-ring, Green failed to land anything before Ward was right back on him, forcing him quickly to the ropes again. They moved back and forth, from the ropes to center ring, Ward snapping in short shots on a Green who wasn’t finding answers. A quick left hook got Ward’s attention with just less than a minute to go and Ward acknowledged the blow by motioning for Green to throw another. Ward tied Green up and walked him to the ropes but Green forced him backwards with his body and fired a shot underneath towards the heart of Ward. A lead left hook in the final ten seconds missed for Green and lazy right was countered with a sharp Ward left.
Rounds five and six looked followed the trends of what had come before, Ward amplifying the punishment to provide contrast. A right hand buckled Green’s legs in the sixth and, as had been the case in round three, Ward pursued Green into the ropes and worked him over with the full range of his offense. Green walked to his corner, the fight half over in terms of time, but with a look that said maybe his time for the night was already up.
Ward cracked Green with a right hand at the opening of round seven, Green posing on the outside and then falling into clinches. Throwing, as he had most of the night, only single token blows, Green struggled for output while Ward remained consistently on his game plan. The action was deliberate, and stayed so until the final minute of the eighth round which featured a pair of strong combinations to the body by Green offset with Ward mugging him along the ropes into the bell. After taking steady abuse again in round nine, a Ward right hand in the final ten seconds saw Green nearly topple as the crowd groaned for him at the echo of the shot.
It was rinse and repeat to begin the tenth, a Ward right busting Green to the ropes and Green following without putting shots together when the action moved off the strands. The entirety of the final minute was another display of Ward as bulldog, whipping Green back and forth with left and right handed leather and sending him to his stool with a bloodied nose and little hope of avoiding six more minutes of beating.
Ward began the championship rounds fighting as if he was the man being shutout, chasing and firing and working for the hope of a stoppage. Green’s hands remained loose in front of him and rarely moved in anger towards the hometown hero. Ward again charged, full force, as the final round got underway, his right hand saying to the crowd that he lusted for a night without scorecards. He wasn’t going to get it.
Green, who had been openly critical of his initial exclusion from the tournament, fought the last three minutes mostly moving backwards, initiating the bulk of the clinches. A final exchange, Green letting his hands go and Ward returning fire, took place where the story of the fight had unfolded, Green with his back to the ropes as Ward controlled the fight. The final bell sounded and Ward waited only moments for his hand to be raised by an academic 120-108 across the board, a bell to bell shutout seen by all three judges.
In analyzing the action, the tactics of Ward jump right out. Some fans have remarked that Ward is a somewhat ‘dirty’ fighter. It’s unfair; the word is learned. Yes, he sometimes leads with his head; yes, he knows how to use his shoulders. So what? He’s damn good at it and those aren’t skills one learns over night. Watch old films and what Ward was doing is something any old-timer could respect. He doesn’t just counter an opponent’s offense; he counters their whole body.
In the pre-fight report card, Ward was given credit for “throwing against his opponent’s rhythm.” It was evident again early on as Ward would hit, tie up, and hit again while Green was still figuring out how to counter the first burst. By round three, the beating was on. If Ward had more than just ‘make them respect me’ power, the fight goes home early last Saturday. He was hardly touched outside of single shots and the body work he took was almost all with Green’s back to the ropes, no real authority behind it.
Ward deserves the highest praise, but…
There has to be a but, because Green was just terrible in the ring. It wasn’t that he was getting beat. Being the lesser man on a given night is forgivable. It was that, after all the talk of being avoided over the years, all the talk that he belonged in the “Super Six,” Green never went for it. He would jab and then freeze too often, nary a right hand to be found in setting up his money punch, the left hook. There was never a moment where caution was thrown to the wind, never a serious chance taken. He stayed on his feet, and didn’t quit on the stool when he could have late in the fight, but it was with so little effort towards victory that survival didn’t merit commending.
Looking Ahead
Green’s camp, a day after, openly acknowledged as much. Speaking with his advisor Greg Leon, Leon stated, “(Allan) is disappointed and actually some of the adjectives he used are a bit harsher than that. Allan is quite frankly embarrassed and ashamed of himself for the performance he put on last night. He has no excuses and he’s not going to make any. He just promises to the fans that he’s gonna’ be better the next time out, he’s gonna’ be competitive the next time out, and he’s gonna’ be coming to kick some ass the next time out.”
The next time out will be a third round bout with WBC titlist Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO) and there will rightfully be skeptics of Green’s chances, skeptics who will feel they’ve heard it all before. The tone presented Sunday was different than what Green projected after the Ward loss in the ring where he offered up the fatigue of too many training camps as a rationale for his performance. Asked what he would say to those who note Allan sounded like he was making excuses after the fight, Leon said, “Whenever they talk to a fighter right after a fight, they’re dealing with a guy who is emotional, the heat of the moment, sometimes they say things just out of emotion. Allan feels he wasn’t himself for certain reasons but those reasons shouldn’t be focused on as much as he’s ashamed of himself, embarrassed, and he has no harsher critic than himself on what he didn’t do.”
He’ll need to stay critical preparing for Kessler. The longtime veteran of the Super Middleweight title scene is likely to have increased confidence after winning a war against Carl Froch where he showed every bit of the will to win Green was missing against Ward. Despite the loss, Green’s chances to advance to the semi-finals are not gone but he’ll need a knockout win, and losses by Froch (against Arthur Abraham) and Andre Dirrell (against Ward), for it to happen. A Kessler win, on points or knockout, would ensure a semi-finalist slot. Even a draw likely advances him. The Dane needs a Green win every bit as bad as the opposite and should open the favorite to get it. Green will have to prove, with his fists, that he can be better than however he is regarded at post.
Ward moves on to Dirrell and who can’t love the story. It will be two friends and Olympic teammates. One has a secured chance to win it all in place. The other, dogged by performing at less than he could have been in the tournament opener loss to Froch, will have to put personal bonds aside with a win at all costs mentality. Dirrell (19-1, 13 KO) needs the Ward win; for Ward, it’s merely icing on the preliminary rounds cake but the icing kicks. Ward will know winning means Dirrell does not advance and takes food off the Dirrell table. How hard he fights in making that come to pass will be yet another indication of how special Ward may grow to become.
If the dogged Ward who battered Green shows up to find the Dirrell who stood his ground and boxed beautifully for the first nine rounds of the Arthur Abraham fight, who got up from the uncalled knockdown in round ten before being hit while down for the disqualification win in eleven…if that Dirrell shows up, this could be the sort of high speed chess match ardent boxing fans can be mesmerized by. The skill, pedigree, and speed, are there. We await the opening bell to see if the style match will be there to make the fight worthy of the story it provides.
Report Card Picks 2010: 16-10
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
