Better Resume and Why: Andre Ward or Sven Ottke

[robertzimmerman]

He has announced his uncertainty about fighting after the rematch. My guess is one or two fights and he will retire.

He'll be around for a good while yet.

[bojangles1987]

Let's get the record straight...I said Ward has a slightly better resume than Ottke. I also said, if I were to start a thread on here touting the greatness of Kessler, Abraham, Dawson, Bika, and Froch I would be laughed out of the forum. I asked how Ward is so great if his opponents weren't so great. Fair question.

You said there's an argument Froch was robbed.

Hard to take you seriously about this conversation with ridiculous claims like that.

[GhostofDempsey]

He'll be around for a good while yet.

So I guess you know better than him, interesting.

[robertzimmerman]

So I guess you know better than him, interesting.

We'll find out in good time.

All the signs are that he'll continue for a while.

He and Hunter still have aspirations of maybe fighting at HW before he retires.

[M Bison]

Joe's career was not more impressive at all.

He was a great fighter, but he wasn't overly ambitious.

He spent 14 years in a relatively weak division, making 21 defences of a lightly regarded WBO belt. And you have to note that he had a walking around weight of 14 stone, and he had to literally starve himself to make the SMW limit.

He could have moved up to LHW whenever he'd have wanted. But he wasn't interested, despite the fact that it was a stronger division with more recognisable names, and in the late 90's-early 00's, he knew he couldn't unify with Ottke.

He had no intentions of fighting the best fighters out there such as Roy Jones. He was content fighting guys like Salem, Veit, Mkrtchyan and Ashira etc in his 30's. Also, he wouldn't travel to the U.S. which meant that he was a relative nobody until he beat Lacy in 2006.

His best wins were against: Eubank, Woodhall, Brewer, Mitchell, Veit, Reid, Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins. The fight against Roy meant nothing, as he wrote in his own autobiography that Roy had been a shot fighter since 2004.

I watched his career in it's entirety, and I can tell you straight that he would never have fought a guy like Kovalev at LHW.

The resumes are comparable, and Andre has taken more risks. Also, you can't say that Joe never lost but Andre has. You've got to be fair and look at the official results only. Otherwise you're not being objective. Because many people think Reid deserved at least a draw, and many people think he lost to Bernard. In my opinion, it was quality vs quantity against Bernard. I had the fight a draw.

All great wins.

Why should he when Roy Jones Jr wouldn't travel to Britain or any of the other top American guys names you like to throw at me?
Plus It's not his fault Roy Jones Jr and co left the division during his time of prominence.

Reid was throwing some good shots, but he allowed himself to get outworked in most of the rounds.
Bernard Hopkins quality was not enough similar to Reid, but Hopkins did one thing Reid didn't do and that constantly clinched, I had Joe winning both fights by a margin of 4/5pts whilst I had the Reid fight a bit closer due to Reid focusing more on clean fighting.

[TOBYLEE1]

Funny to watch ppl here re-write history. Ward's style is not the most pleasing but he has serious skills.

Anybody that says that he beat Froch by a point or lost to him never saw the fight. Now some here are saying that Forch was not good to start with. Kov threw the fight away when he stopped trying to fight, a fight that he was way ahead.

This a joke of a comparison just to bash Ward.

Yet some here consider Rigo the best or one of the best and his record is subpar.

[Blackclouds]

Sven Ottke who? Can't get more anonymous than him next to being some minimum weight fighter out of Asia. A complete nobody. Andre Ward should not have lost a single round to Froch, that was a washout and a clear decision that even Froch himself had to acknowledge.

[robertzimmerman]

Kim Jong-Un,

All great wins.

Why should he when Roy Jones Jr wouldn't travel to Britain or any of the other top American guys names you like to throw at me?
Plus It's not his fault Roy Jones Jr and co left the division during his time of prominence.

What do you mean why should he have?

Again: he was a very talented fighter, but one who had to literally starve himself to make 12 stone, coming down from 14, to fight in a relatively weak division. Who else would have defended a lightly regarded WBO belt 21 times at SMW, if they could have comfortably fought at LHW which was stronger? Joe wouldn't move up, even though he knew he couldn't get the Ottke fight, and there was nothing else on the horizon at the time. Again: he wasn't ambitious enough. I'll acknowledge that he had lots of injuries, but he was content to fight the Salem's of the world even when he was in his 30's. Saying that he had a better career than Andre is laughable.

Why would Roy have travelled to Britain? Because he was the unified LHW champ and the consensus P4P no.1 fighter on the planet. The onus was on Joe to move up if he wanted to fight the best. Joe was relatively unknown outside of Europe. Roy was never going to travel or drop down in weight to accommodate him. Again, there's no way on earth Joe would have fought Sergey Kovalev had he have been in Andre's position. He wouldn't have put himself at risk like that.

Reid was throwing some good shots, but he allowed himself to get outworked in most of the rounds. Bernard Hopkins quality was not enough similar to Reid, but Hopkins did one thing Reid didn't do and that constantly clinched, I had Joe winning both fights by a margin of 4/5pts whilst I had the Reid fight a bit closer due to Reid focusing more on clean fighting.

That's your opinion. But you can't say that Joe won those fights whilst stating that Andre lost to Kovalev. He got the decision and all of the judges were in agreement. It's not fair for you to talk about that fight as a loss. Officially, it was a win. Whilst I personally don't think Joe beat Bernard, I have to acknowledge it as an official win for him.

[robertzimmerman]

Funny to watch ppl here re-write history. Ward's style is not the most pleasing but he has serious skills.

Anybody that says that he beat Froch by a point or lost to him never saw the fight. Now some here are saying that Forch was not good to start with. Kov threw the fight away when he stopped trying to fight, a fight that he was way ahead.

This a joke of a comparison just to bash Ward.

Yet some here consider Rigo the best or one of the best and his record is subpar.

There's a few people who think the Froch fight was really close.

It's always baffled me.