By Jake Donovan

Even perfection isn’t good enough for Andre Ward.

Do a search of fighters who have went more than a decade without losing and see how they conduct themselves in and especially out of the ring. There are few exceptions on the humble side, with Ricardo Lopez immediately coming to mind but perhaps being one of the very few.

The last time Andre Ward’s name came on the losing side of a fight result was in 1996, when he was barely a teenager and only two years into his amateur career. He went on to become one of the most decorated fighters in recent U.S. amateur boxing history, complete with his capturing Olympic Gold as a light heavyweight in the 2004 Summer Games.

Ward and his handlers were able to parlay that success into an HBO-televised pro debut. While he didn’t exactly sprinted around the track in the months and years to follow, he’s remained perfect and – for now and the foreseeable future – the lone active American fighter to have won a gold medal.

Last November, he racked up his greatest pro achievement to date with a dominant win over Mikkel Kessler. The win came in Stage One of the Super Six World Boxing Classic, which continues this weekend when Ward (21-0, 13KO) returns to his Oakland hometown to take on Allan Green in the final bout of the Stage Two matchups (SHOWTIME, Saturday 10PM ET/PT).

Many were quick to refer to Oaktown’s finest as the best super middleweight in the world. With a single win, Ward went from untested sleeper pick to the frontrunner in Showtime’s innovative super middleweight tournament.

All told, Ward has plenty of reason to believe that he walks on air if he chose to carry it that way. With many tabbing the Kessler fight as proof enough that he’s the goods, few would blame him if he elected to walk around as if he were untouchable. It’s not uncommon for any fighter to get caught up in his own press clippings, and there were plenty of rave reviews to go around late last year following Ward’s breakthrough performance.

It’s not the kind words and the glowing endorsements that gets Ward out of bed in the morning, however; it’s the belief that no matter how much he’s achieved and how high he’s rated, there is still plenty of room for improvement, regardless of who is standing in the opposite corner on fight night.

“I don’t get caught up in trying to compare this guy with that,” says Ward of Saturday’s fight with Green. “At the end of the day, I look at June 19 as a fresh night. [I]t’s all about showing up on that night. I’ve prepared myself mentally for this to be the toughest fight of my career.”

Even beyond the fact that a tough challenge lies ahead in Green (29-1, 20KO), what makes every fight tougher from here on out for Ward is that no longer hovering over him is a cloud of mystery. Going into the tournament, it was speculated that he and Olympic teammate Andre Dirrell came in with the thinnest resumes and that the jury was still out on both of them.

It took Dirrell one fight longer to prove his mettle, dropping a controversial decision to Carl Froch in a fight that failed miserably on the entertainment side, before putting on a boxing clinic five months later against Arthur Abraham.

For Ward, the proof came moments into his fight with Kessler.

Heading into the fight, many had Kessler as the odds-on favorite to win, with those same believers all but willing to give Ward a pass had he lost, ready to chalk it up as a learning experience.

By night’s end, fans and critics alike discovered about Ward what he knew all along – that with hard work and patience comes success.

But don’t mistake his confidence for arrogance. It was weeks of preparation to turn in the performance he did against Kessler, and he hasn’t stopped working since then.
 
“I think a lot of people think I’m coming in here really well rested and really enjoying the fact that I’ve got a championship,” Ward speculates. “But it’s been all work.”

The past several months have been spent working on the best possible way to get past Green, who has had very few kind words for the defending super middleweight titlist.

Their respective camps exchanged words last year, well before the start of the Super Six, back when Green was on the outside looking in and hoping to literally fight his way into the round robin tournament. Green did much of his own talking, while Ward’s handlers took up the cause on behalf of their fighter to respond as directly – yet also as respectfully – as possible.

Green’s objective at the time was to dismiss the notion that he didn’t “earn” his way into the tournament, pointing to the resumes of both Ward and Dirrell as proof that merit wasn’t the sole criteria for placement.

With Jermain Taylor suffering yet another brutal knockout loss – his third in two years – at the hands of Arthur Abraham in their Stage One matchup and subsequently removing himself from the tournament, came the opportunity for Green to step in and prove his worth. While grateful for the opportunity, he hasn’t stopped talking – specifically about Ward, refusing to buy into the current sale that the undefeated titlist is the world’s best super middleweight.

To his credit, Ward refused to allow himself to get caught up in a war of words, staying true to his character and remaining focused on the task at hand.

But that doesn’t mean he didn’t pay any attention to what his opponent had to say. Quite the contrary, as it provided the extra motivation for a fight he already views as a major challenge.

“Bother me? No. Use them? Absolutely,” Ward said of Green’s stinging comments throughout the promotion and particularly during a recent episode of Showtime’s “Fight Camp 360” documentary series. “I’ve heard his comments and you better believe I use that. It bothers me in a good way because I constantly have something to prove and that’s what not a lot of people realize.

“For me, I try to say as little as possible before a fight. I’m not going to stand there and get pushed down or get bullied but at the end of the day I just shut my mouth, work hard and take care of business. So that’s what I plan on doing (on Saturday night).”

An added incentive to doing his talking in the ring is the fact that he returns home for the third time in his past four fights. More so than proving himself in the ring, what’s most important to Ward is serving as a leader and role model in his community.

“It’s a huge deal for me to be fighting in Oakland. There’s a lot of negative things that come out of this city, but there’s also a lot of good. It’s exciting to see people excited about these fights; for fathers to be bringing their kids. Even women who would never go to a fight come up to me and my wife and say I bought a ticket and I’m coming to the next fight.

“It’s a lot of positive recognition and it’s one of the reasons I’m in this sport. It’s not to make money or build a legacy, but to make a positive impact. We’re slowly and surely doing that and it’s very dear to my heart.”

Being able to come home for his next fight also means a long overdue with his family, from which he’s been separated on and off for most of the year. This fight was originally scheduled to take place in April, but a recurring knee injury resurfaced at the wrong time, interrupting his training camp in mid-March and forcing a two-month postponement.

Once fully rehabbed, it was back to the daily grind, which meant isolation from the rest of the world. Being away from those whom he most cares about, coupled with the continued efforts to prove his critics wrong, is enough for Ward to walk with a little bit of swagger as he prepares for battle.

“If he (Green) has a chip on his shoulder then that makes two of us. I’ve been away from my family for a long time. I’m a bit irritable. He’s desperate to win but I want to keep my title. I don’t know if it’s now or it it’s later but I know eventually I’m going to get respect for the dog that’s in me and for the bite down that I have.

“At some point the talking just stops and it’s about just showing up. If he beats me I’ll take my hat off to him. I don’t make excuses. And I expect the same from him if I beat him. What I’m prepared for is a dogfight. I’m prepared for anything he’s got.”

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .