Andre Ward's path to PPV stardom ... ?

[baya]

PPV star, i don't see it. i feel he beats kov and the rest but with that style and not an over the top personality that's almost required in the absence of a great fighting style, ward just does good with PPV.

but what do i know.

[MindGame]

A whole lot of IF'S ....

Wards path to PPV stardom is simple, just Win ....
Barrera is obviously a must, it should be a decent scrap... But after that will make or break Andre Ward...

I think he needs to beat Kovalev (Enormous if !) outside of Oakland.... If he can beat Kovalev in Vagas or New York it would easily outshine anything he can do in Oakland...

That would make him the darling of the boxing world... Giving Kovalev a immediate rematch would bust the bank wide open for him... Winning that rematch (Another Enormous If) would cement his PPV status, it would be assured...

After that he would need to coax Adonis Stevenson (If Adonis is still a champion? ) into a winner take all the belts in the division match...

So winning solves everything for him... But losing to Kovalev, in exciting fashion, would help is Pay-per-view status also... If there's a rematch that's equally exciting, Ward would be just fine, win or lose..

[about.thousands]

Wards path to PPV stardom is simple, just Win ....
Barrera is obviously a must, it should be a decent scrap... But after that will make or break Andre Ward...

I think he needs to beat Kovalev (Enormous if !) outside of Oakland.... If he can beat Kovalev in Vagas or New York it would easily outshine anything he can do in Oakland...

That would make him the darling of the boxing world... Giving Kovalev a immediate rematch would bust the bank wide open for him... Winning that rematch (Another Enormous If) would cement his PPV status, it would be assured...

After that he would need to coax Adonis Stevenson (If Adonis is still a champion? ) into a winner take all the belts in the division match...

So winning solves everything for him... But losing to Kovalev, in exciting fashion, would help is Pay-per-view status also... If there's a rematch that's equally exciting, Ward would be just fine, win or lose..

I don't see how Kovalev is the path to PPV. Kovalev can't sell, he has to go to other fighters hometown to fight. Ward doesn't fight outside Oakland so he hasn't built a nationwide fan base. I think it's the best fight of the year, even better than Canelo-GGG but I don't think it'll sell well on PPV because neither fighter has a big following. But this is the PPV fans should buy instead of Canelo-Khan and Cotto-TBA and Crawford-Postol. These are the #1 & #2 P4P fighters imo.

[MindGame]

I don't see how Kovalev is the path to PPV. Kovalev can't sell, he has to go to other fighters hometown to fight. Ward doesn't fight outside Oakland so he hasn't built a nationwide fan base. I think it's the best fight of the year, even better than Canelo-GGG but I don't think it'll sell well on PPV because neither fighter has a big following. But this is the PPV fans should buy instead of Canelo-Khan and Cotto-TBA and Crawford-Postol. These are the #1 & #2 P4P fighters imo.

That's a fair assumption.... Kovalev has not been a huge draw and Ward can't draw outside of Oakland. (Mostly because he's reluctant to fight outside of Oakland when he does fight.)

But to be fair to Kovalev, he had to go on the road to secure fights... Pascal likely wouldn't fight Sergey outside of Canada.... But beating Pascal twice and the exposure he got from the Hopkins fight makes him more viable....

Ward vs Kovalev is a pound for pound fight... People will want to see it.... My earlier post mentioned that After Ward vs Kovalev the rematch would be Bank... That's only if the first tussle was exciting and perhaps a close decision...

You have to consider that the Rematch could be PPV gold if the first fight was exciting....

[Rich2123]

I see Ward as similar to B-Hop. He'll be a top level fighter as long as he wants to be, but he's going to be a tv fighter, not a major PPV fighter. Like others have pointed out, there is nothing wrong with that.

I don't see a fight with Kovalev as being such a huge fight that he's going to bust into a new lever of fame. And there's really no one else for him to fight, at least right away.

Unless he leaves Roc Nation, he's not fighting Stevenson or any Haymon fighter.

[xhiddenx87]

To me the kova-Ward PPV will do like 250-300k....and thats a good number

[Scipio2009]

Barrera in March (HBO), Brand in August (HBO), and the Kovalev fight coming in November (HBOPPV). Ward-Stevenson is still in the cards for 2017 (though pushed likely pushed back with Stevenson-Alvarez still needing to be dealt with)

... and there's the coming Creed 2, the most obvious main story being Adonis Johnson-Creed vs Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler (in a "battle of Los Angeles", likely climaxed at Staples Center in the film).

The amount of press-related exposure that Ward can expect for that media tour is ridiculous.

[Redd Foxx]

Since when is stardom something that Ward is trying to achieve? He's well aware of what he could do to generate interest and sell more fights. He's just opposed to playing that character. He said he's fought with promoters about that for years. Nobody shuns higher income but there's some people that put their principles first and Andre is one of those few. That choice is his burden to bear.

[kafkod]

Preface this discussion with the fact that Andre Ward's first fight on HBO did 1.3m viewers for Ward-Dawson and 1.2m viewers for Ward-Rodriguez (a bygone era for HBO, but there's still a base to work from). The path, though, seems to be pretty straightforward:

-3/26, against Sullivan Barrera, on HBO [Oracle Arena, Oakland]
-6/18, against TBA, on HBOPPV [support to Cotto's fight, Barclays Center, NYC]
-Nov 2016, vs. Sergey Kovalev, on HBOPPV [Mandalay Bay EC, Las Vegas]
-Mar 2017, vs Adonis Stevenson, on PPV [Bell Centre, Montreal or Oracle]
(with Ward's HBO done at that point, fight is free to go to whatever channel that puts up the money)

By that point, with four belts around his waist, and the hype behind delivering three PPV shows, Andre Ward (depending on how the shows do) is in position to call some major

Lol. And Kovalev is no more than a rung on the ladder to super-stardom for the great Andre Ward!

Ward is going to get Krushed.

[Hype job]