Former world champion and Sky Sports analyst Johnny Nelson believes Andre Ward (32-0, 16 KOs) would be making a very big mistake if he moves up to the heavyweight division to challenge IBF, IBO, WBA world champion Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs).
This past Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Ward retained the IBF, WBA, WBO light heavyweight titles with a stoppage of Sergey Kovalev in their HBO Pay-Per-View rematch.
After the fight, Ward discussed the possibility of heading up to cruiserweight or even heavyweight - in order to replicate the 2003 accomplishment by Roy Jones Jr. - who was the unified champion at 175 and jumped up to heavyweight to unseat John Ruiz for the WBA world title.
Ward's trainer, Virgil Hunter, would like to see his man fight Joshua - because he believes the British champion has flaws that Ward can easily exploit. He says Ward is fully capable of outboxing Joshua.
Nelson disagrees and says the better skilled Ward would get absolutely knocked out by Joshua.
"As a fighter, you like to hold one clear advantage over your opponent. Your superior height, reach, or speed. But with a fighter like Anthony Joshua, he's got height, reach, speed, and power. No matter how good you are, if you cannot match one of those, you're going to get beat. Andre Ward would suffer his first professional defeat, without a doubt. Anthony Joshua would knock him out," Nelson told Sky Sports.
On the other hand, Nelson views former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew as a perfect opponent for Ward.
Bellew recently stated that he's more than willing to face Ward in the ring. The two fighters were co-stars on the motion picture Creed.
Bellew moved up to heavyweight in March to stop David Haye in eleven rounds, but he's still capable of getting down to the cruiserweight limit of 200 pounds if needed.
"Ward is talking about stepping up in weight and Tony Bellew could be an ideal opponent. For a big fight against Ward, I think Tony could go back down to cruiserweight again," Nelson said.
"It might be a similar style of fight to his last two bouts with Sergey Kovalev. Bellew has got that snap, he's got the power, the height and reach, while Andre Ward has got those slick skills and the clever movement. But you've got to give it to Tony Bellew, because he doesn't care who it is. He'll say 'yeah, let's do this'."