Andre Ward offers Marco Antonio Periban a HBO-televised fight

[Scipio2009]

not for 300k he wont, dummy

Sullivan Barrera just fought Karo Murat, in the main event, on HBO Latino.

"mr promoter", how much money do you figure Barrera took home for that fight?

[deathofaclown]

I thought the Paul Smith fight was his "needing to get back into the ring" fight....

[dan_cov]

Periban as in the guy who didn't even bother training, came in in grotesque shape and got swatted by DeGale in a 3 round blow out? No thanks.
They could stage that rubbish in my back garden and I'd close the blinds.

P4P no1 and continually looking to fight opponents James DeGale effortlessly stopped before he even hit his peak. Shameful, no wonder this guy has literally 3 fans with a million excuses between them.

[Scipio2009]

He doesn't have to fight Barrera, he can fight someone like Juergen Braehmer or Felix Valera (rated #1 by the WBA), even though they are both southpaws, it would still give him credibility if he beats those opponents.

There are many options for Ward to choose from in the LHW division that are much better than Periban.

Juergen Braehmer isn't going to leave Germany for any amount of money, especially as a 37-year old German titlist fighting in Germany, and Felix Valera is all of 13-0, without a super-decorated amateur career (watched Valera-Kashtanov on YouTube and the guy has an absolute **** fighting style).

If all of the rumors hold true, Andre Ward is looking for an Orthodox fighter(in preparation for Sergey Kovalev in the Fall), who's willing to fight at 175(opening things up to light heavyweights, big 168s), is acceptable to HBO, and is willing to take the fight for a $300k-$400k (career-best money for every fighter, sans maybe 10 guys at 168/175).

Whether Periban is even offered the fight (which seems to be in doubt now), I doubt that he even ponders walking away from $300k to fight a man, which can't be said for a lot of these other "better than Perriban" fighters, if we're being honest.

[Scipio2009]

Ward never offered $400 K.

My mistake, the rumor is that Andre Ward's camp only offered $300k, just 5 times the money Sullivan Barrera has ever earned from a professional fight (or likely any fight, for that matter).

Thanks for the correction.

[Kenchiro]

Y the *** r the wards fans so anxious that their idol is gonna fight kovalev in 2016? I'm sitting here wandering if the guy is going to fight at all. For Christ sake I'm betting my christmas presents that wards gonna sue somebody b4 he fights somebody!

I say ward wants a tune up before he fights a tune up!

[El-blanco]

Lol what a loser. Anyone thinking he's going to fight Kovalev is insane. Ward is a b1tch.

[MDPopescu]

Even if Kovalev wasn't around Beterbiev, Shabranskyy, Gvozdyk, Bivol, Mekhontsev are.

... I know, I know... That's why I used the "plural"...

(I think that Ward secretly prepares for his 168 comeback, doe...)

[Eastcoast]

... I know, I know... That's why I used the "plural"...

(I think that Ward secretly prepares for his 168 comeback, doe...)

No, no, no.... Ward won't move back down from 175lbs to 168lbs, he knows first hand what happened to Chad Dawson.

Ben Thompson: "When we've spoken in the past about that, you always said that you weren't going to do it until you were ready to make it a permanent move. Is that still the case? Is this move permanent or is the door still open to you possibly fighting at 168?"

Andre Ward: "I never move back down. That's why I took my time to move up because it wasn't time to move up and I knew that when I made the decision to come up, it has to be final. I can't play with my body like that. I can't take those kind of risks to build my body up and to go in a higher weight class and then strip the weight back off maybe a year from now or something like that. It just wouldn't be a good look."

[Eff Pandas]

I hope to see Ward vs Shabranskyy, Chilemba, Barrera (ikik he turned down 300k already) or even that tough Cuban cat who gots back to back L's now next. So anything less than that & I'll not really be looking forward to a Ward fight one more time (haven't looked forward to a Ward fight since 2012).

If its not one of those guys than I think there are slim pickings for respectable opponents & we'll probably see some random ranked foreign guy who sounds sorta imposing, like Igor Mikhalkin, or something along those lines as the 2nd tier best option.

3rd tier (the LOL tier) best option is probably calling up a 168 fringe contender-ish/journeyman-ish guy, like Periban as the TS rumor is saying happened or maybe even Rubio to come up (he weight 169 for Anthony Dirrell so its a stretch, but money doe).