Is Andre Ward the world's second best fighter?

[Mr. Fantastic]

Kessler pre Ward was a bum to many people and now that Ward beat him he's legit. Lol gotta love hardcore boxing fans.

[NearHypnos]

Pure ability? I'd still have Ivan Calderon kver him. >__>.... You can't say someone is more skilled than another fighter who has done much more with his skills. Is Ward just the most skilled guy in his division? We don't know, actually...he might not even be the best at 168...

Marquez has, with his "limited ability" done much more with it than Ward has. You can argue Marquez is more skilled, but less flashy. You can have all th skills in the world, but it doesn't translate into being better...just look at Linares and Zab Judah.

I'm actually a big Ward fan and think he IS better than Bute, possibly even Martinez...but until he proves it, it's irrelevant how good he's looked against these slow guys. Those were his to lose, and don't let the "odds" or "experts" fool you. Ward was the favorite coming into the super six. Anybody who's seen him fight knew that, or SHoULD have known that.


Props to Ward for doing what he had to do against the top of his division. Hope he goes Bute, then moves on to bugger better things. But right now I'll take effectiveness and resume over perceived skills in Ward. He's been effective, but not like JMM. Not yet.

You can be knocked down/out, outboxed, etc. at the end of the day, all that matters is who you've beat. JMM is therefore more skilled to me, because he has gotten more done.

Also, someone mentioned the weight thing then mentioned how it diesnt matter because Heavyweights stayed in one division. Yeah, because the options of going up are so abundant for them. :P

Ward CAN move up, and is pretty damn big at his class. Ward moved down if I recall. Not saying that should matter, there's something to be said about being a dominant champion. I'll take a dominant one weight rein over moving up collecting titles against weak champs

[AntonTheMeh]

and actually, I'm gonna apologize for my first post. i shouldn't have sounded as disgusted as i did. as much as i disagree with him being the 2nd best fighter, i don't think the gap between the second and top 5 fighters is all that apparent. so at this point its about preference from each individual in this thread.

[_original_]

I've got him in my top 5 behind Floyd, Marquez, Pacquiao, and Martinez but he's very skilled and is already piling up a great resume. He's barely making his mark so he can easily become p4p number one at the rate he's going. But as good as his best wins are (Abraham, Froch, and Kessler) I'd like to see him take on different styles. Yes he's looked good against that European style of fighting but how about he fights a Dirrell brother, Dawson, Pascal, or even Bute to see how does against different more versatile style of fighting. I might be alone on this but I believe Andre Dirrell beats him and think he's lucky that fight didn't take place.

[Mars Volta]

Kessler pre Ward was a bum to many people and now that Ward beat him he's legit. Lol gotta love hardcore boxing fans.

yeah people give ward more credit for beating kessler then they do when Joe Calzaghe did

[Mr. Fantastic]

yeah people give ward more credit for beating kessler then they do when Joe Calzaghe did

Exactly!!!

[F l i c k e r]

bro, if you're asking if he's the second best fighter, you're using deductive reasoning about a p4p list.

He said based on skill. Not resume.

p4p list is really just based on who beat who. not really pure skill.

A guy with a crafstman tool cabinet filled with a multitude of tools is different than a guy with just a wrench. Even if that guy can use that wrench, very well.

[JK1700]

Moving up in weight means nothing when you are talking skill. Pound 4 pound, means nothing when talking about skill. Being smaller, or larger means nothing when talking about skill.

Skill is skill regardless of where it comes from.

And I think you're putting too much on that performance. Rather than looking at one fight where he utilized a brawling-like tactic. Look at the overall picture, he steadily changed his style for each fight and fought much better than whomever he fought.

When you can change your style for each match and still win against the best the division has to offer? That's amazing.

The equivalent would be like Paulie Malignaggi fighting Maidana, swarming him, and knocking him out. Or Maidana fighting Bradley and suddenly putting on a Marquez-like performance.

Being a really good counter puncher with average defense is great. But being a guy who can counter punch, out box, inside fight, brawl, swarm, technical box great fighters. Is a totally different level.

Well, I wasn't referring to just "skill". You took my post out of context and completely missed the point. This thread is about who is the better fighter. Just because somebody is a more skilled fighter doesn't mean they are neccesarily a better fighter. Marquez's win over Pacquiao is more impressive to me than any of Ward's wins. And the fact that he moved up two weight divisions to do it makes it even more impressive. For you to state that going up in weight has no connection to skill is a ridiculous statement. When you go up in weight to face bigger opponents, skill plays a major factor because you need to outsmart the bigger man and beat him with strategy. That shows his skill more than anything, it takes an extremely skilled fighter to move up two weight divisions and dominate somebody who is considered the best or second best in the world.

If you think Marquez is just a counterpuncher and nothing else then I don't see the point in debating with you because if you do believe that, then you obviously don't know much about Marquez at all. He is a very versatile fighter who can do all of the things you stated that Ward can do. He has showed that he can brawl, box, counterpunch, fight inside and do many other things, on many occassions. He just chooses to counterpunch most of the time, but he can do it all very well. Anybody who has seen some of his fights knows that he can do all these things.

Your overrating Ward's opposition also. Allan Green, Sakio Bika, Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch are not the versatile, dangerous fighters that you are trying to paint them as. You notice that I didn't include Kessler, well that's because I think Ward should have been DQ'd in that fight for all of the fouling that he did. Had he not been able to clinch Kessler whenever he got close, hold and hit him every time he clinched and headbutt him numerous times, all of which are supposed to be considered illegal in boxing, then he may well have lost that fight. Ward is a very skillfull fighter, but he is not the second best boxer in the world.

[Light_Speed]

Being a really good counter puncher with average defense is great. But being a guy who can counter punch, out box, inside fight, brawl, swarm, technical box great fighters. Is a totally different level.

[IMG]http://*******.com/7j7hk4w[/IMG]

[F l i c k e r]

Well, I wasn't referring to "skill". You took my post out of context and completely missed the point. Just because somebody is a more skilled fighter doesn't mean they are neccesarily a better fighter. Marquez's win over Pacquiao is more impressive to me than any of Ward's wins. And the fact that he moved up two weight divisions to do it makes it even more impressive. For you to state that going up in weight has no connection to skill is ridiculous. When you go up in weight to face bigger opponents, skill plays a major factor because you need to outsmart the bigger man and beat him with strategy. That shows his skill more than anything, it takes an extremely skilled fighter to move up two weight divisions and dominate somebody who is considered the best or second best in the world.

Your overrating Ward's opposition also. Allan Green, Sakio Bika, Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch are not the versatile, dangerous fighters that you are trying to paint them as. You notice that I didn't include Kessler, well that's because I think Ward should have been DQ'd in that fight for all of the fouling that he did. Had he not been able to clinch Kessler whenever he got close, hold and hit him every time he clinched and headbutt him numerous times, all of which are supposed to be considered illegal in boxing, then he may well have lost that fight. Ward is a very skillfull fighter, but he is not the second best boxer in the world.

Well, if you weren't talking about skill. Then my apologies. I thought you were talking about skill because the topic at hand was about skill.

The TS is asking is Ward the second most skilled boxer today. Not who is the best boxer in the world.

He worded this in his first post. But I can see that it is possible to lose that in translation.