Does Andre Ward's style of boxing use illegal tactics? Official Poll!

[DrewWoodside]

I would call it dirty more so than cheating, he certainly bends the rules but some of it is unintentional and some of it is just fouling to gain an advantage.

Is a guy that fouls Dwight Howard to send him to the line instead of dunking cheating, is a db that tackles a guy that beats him to hold him to a 30 yard gain instead of a TD cheating.

How he fights is certainly not the cleanest example of boxing so I can understand not being a fan but I wouldn't call it cheating, dirty and not very sporting sure but this is fist fighting I don't expect them to be like that.

I like Ward because he plays to win and will get in the mud to do it.

I agree that this is a decent parallel. However they call the fouls in basketball, and eventually if you've committed too many fouls, you foul out. Ward never seems in danger in anyway of fouling out or taking a significant enough penalty that he curbs his behavior. I would be a little less critical if he would at least receive more warnings. All I can see is at least he doesn't have a habit of throwing low blows..

[mrlopez]

No more illegal than Ricky Hatton's style was.

or time bradley for that matter, but i kinda liked hattons style more cause he ko'd some cats too, ward/bradley, fu.ck i cant remember the last time

[vacon04]

hahaha he had like 1 clinch that whole entire round with only 2-3 clinches in that round but the other 2 were from missed punches so they fell into each other. Thats called schooling Mikkell Kessler right thurr. haha

Also take into consideration the man doesn't fight in huge rings like Floyd Mayweather or Manny so he's in a smaller ring and he's a defensive fighter so that automatically puts him at a disadvantage where he likes to fight with space.

The Bika fight was mutally dirty. You can fault Bika just as much as you fault Ward.

Yeah, but nobody is saying that Bika is the best 168 pound fighter in the world ... I don't like Ward's style, yeah he has good moments but I think he's overrated. He does use his head a lot, and that's why I'm not happy to see that he continues to fight the super 6 tournament only in california with referees selected by california state comission ... If he goes to the final, is it going to be again in the US? I mean all of the fighters traveled and visited their opponents except Ward?

[DrewWoodside]

or time bradley for that matter, but i kinda liked hattons style more cause he ko'd some cats too, ward/bradley, fu.ck i cant remember the last time

Bradley is a little rough b/c those headbutts seem to happen to frequently.. But he's not doing an exceptional amount of clinching, and generally speaking I find his style to be more aesthetically pleasing.

I think Ricky Hatton's style was less off putting b/c despite his suspect style, his chin was frequently available and he swung with wreckless abandon. Both of whom counter their shortcomings with other aspects of style to make their fights watchable imo.

[joseph5620]

or time bradley for that matter, but i kinda liked hattons style more cause he ko'd some cats too, ward/bradley, fu.ck i cant remember the last time

The question was whether it's legal or not. Not whether they score knockouts or not.



I personally don't think any of them fight with an illegal style.

[The Gambler1981]

I agree that this is a decent parallel. However they call the fouls in basketball, and eventually if you've committed too many fouls, you foul out. Ward never seems in danger in anyway of fouling out or taking a significant enough penalty that he curbs his behavior. I would be a little less critical if he would at least receive more warnings. All I can see is at least he doesn't have a habit of throwing low blows..

Some players get to abuse that system though, star players are never as likely to foul out. Also rules in boxing are quite a bit more gray, in basketball different refs do call things differently but in boxing I don't even know if the refs read the same pages of the rule book looking how vastly different guys call fights.

There is something to be said for professional fouling and he is really pretty clever with it breaking rules that really don't get followed like say low blows.

I can understand your point and why you dislike it though, I just don't quite feel the same way. I would not feel sorry for Ward one bit if he got out dirtied and lost a fight because he got frustrated at the other guy being more dirty.

[Dirk Diggler UK]

Hes a top fighter but I dont know how anyone can deny he uses dirty tactics.

[The Surgeon]

I love Ward and i think he's highly entertaining, i also think he is a top 3-4 p4p fighter. Yeah thats right


It also bothers me that people complain so much about his fouling when there are far worse guys out there who get little flak at all (Maidana for example, he's so so dirty and blatantly) and in some cases like a Bernard Hopkins they are actually celebrated for their "sly moves" " and ability to "rough up" an opponent "old school tactics" all that bull*****

[DrewWoodside]

Some players get to abuse that system though, star players are never as likely to foul out. Also rules in boxing are quite a bit more gray, in basketball different refs do call things differently but in boxing I don't even know if the refs read the same pages of the rule book looking how vastly different guys call fights.

There is something to be said for professional fouling and he is really pretty clever with it breaking rules that really don't get followed like say low blows.

I can understand your point and why you dislike it though, I just don't quite feel the same way. I would not feel sorry for Ward one bit if he got out dirtied and lost a fight because he got frustrated at the other guy being more dirty.

I would definitely agree Ward is exploring the gray area of boxing's rule book very thoroughly. I think he'll answer a lot of questions and silence a lot of critics when(if) he has a highly competitive fight away from what feels like home field advantage.

This is going to be one helluva tricky fight for AA to rebound his career with. If he's looking to land single game changing hayemakers by the mid rounds.. I think this will be easy work for Ward.

[Hitman932]

Mikkel Kessler fought like such a punk ass ***** that I swear after a certain point he was doing everything possible to get himself headbutted because he knew a DQ was the only way he could win.

How else does anyone explain Ward dominating the first 5 rounds without any headbutts and then all of a sudden they start happening in rapid succession?

Kessler was just standing there, never moving his head when he knew Ward was coming in, he was trying to draw fouls.... much like a guy who flops in basketball and/or soccer.