Ward rolls through Abraham into Super Six finale

Ward rolls through Abraham, into Super Six finale

Mark E. Ortega

Leave-it-in-the-ring.com

May 14, 2011

With a Los Angeles Galaxy soccer game taking place just mere minutes away on the same turf, Saturday night's Super Six World Boxing Classic semi-final bout between WBA champion Andre Ward and former middleweight king Arthur Abraham felt much aligned with the usual pomp and circumstance that accompanies a game of futbol.

At the end of the day, 2004 United States Olympic Gold medalist and WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward marched to victory after early difficulties, conquering his Armenian born German foe on the hostile field of the Home Depot Center in Carson, California where Abraham enjoyed an awkward home field advantage in front of over 5,000 fans, many of them waving the red, blue, and gold flag of Armenia.

Ward, who long has been criticized for having been coddled in the confines of his hometown of Oakland, California, felt the ire of the crowd for the first time in his professional career and he responded brilliantly after a rough early going.

Abraham, the former long-reigning IBF middleweight champion who moved up a weight class to participate in the groundbreaking Showtime developed shortened round robin tournament, came out quickly as he took the fight to Ward and took him out of his comfort zone, landing a few big shots in the opening round that helped keep Ward on his laurels for the next couple of rounds.

Ward, who entered the tournament as a consensus longshot to make it to this point of the tournament, began to gain confidence in the fourth round as Abraham reverted to the style that helped cost him two back to back blemishes in his last two fights of the tournament. Abraham fell into a shell and Ward kept coming forward as he attacked the high guard of his powerful foe and moved out of the way of return fire when Abraham did elect to throw. Both fighters made for an awkward battle much of the way as they came together in clinches often and tried to jostle each other around the ring.

Ward's timing began to appear more heavily in the fifth round, and from that point on Abraham rarely pressed the action, making it easy work for the judges to begin awarding round after round to the undefeated champion. Ward backed up Abraham with flurries often and rarely was hit clean the entire second half of the fight.

Ward even turned southpaw a number of times and found a lot of success doing it, mainly in the championship rounds. Ward drew boos from the heavily Armenian crowd whenever he landed, and for the last eight rounds there were plenty of boos.

“It was fun, I had a lot of fun,” responded Ward on what it was like fighting the crowd as well as his opponent for once. “I look at one of my favorite fighters, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. who is 40-0 when he fought in Las Vegas against Ricky Hatton and he had the whole crowd against him. I looked at his composure, how he stayed composed even though it was a rugged fight, a tough fight, and literally everybody was against him, so we found a way to get it done. I had a job to do.

“I told people before, who said they thought he might have more fans, 'He might have more fans but it'll be fun.' That's what it was, because you have to prove you as a champion that you can win under different circumstances. I know that I can perform under any circumstnaces but it was good to let the people know I can perform under any circumstances.”

Abraham, possibly sensing a bit of urgency, opened up in the twelfth similar to how he began the fight, but it was too little, too late as Ward was already far ahead on all three judges' scorecards.

The official verdict rendered was a unanimous decision victory for the Bay Area, California native, by way of 120-108, 118-110, and 118-111 scores. The big story in the leadup to this bout was the perceived unfairness of the selected officials as drawn attention to by Abraham's promoter Wilfred Sauerland. It is interesting to note because it was impartial judge Stanley Christodoulou of South Africa who turned in the shutout scorecard of 120-108 in favor of Ward, not the German or American one. Christodoulou was scoring bouts in 1976, when neither Ward or Abraham had even been born yet. Christodoulou is nearing 70 years of age.

Now Ward and trainer Virgil Hunter will look forward to a few weeks from now when the other half of the semi-finals plays out in Atlantic City, New Jersey between WBC champion Carl Froch and former Fighter of the Year Glen Johnson. The winner earns the rights to a fight with Ward in the tournament finals, tentatively scheduled for the end of the year.

It's quite obvious that to Ward, Froch is the most desirable opponent. Despite his impressive run through his recent streak of competition, cases can be made for why Ward has been successful as well as ways to undermine the opposition it came against. If Froch is able to get past Johnson, it makes a fight between the two for real super middleweight legitimacy rather than Ward possibly getting the throne against a mid-40's opponent who had toiled at the weight class above for much of the last decade.

“He's been calling for it, we want to give the fans what they want. It's gonna be an action packed fight, it'll be a live atmosphere like it was tonight,” said Ward in accordance to a future Froch fight.

Whomever Ward stares across the ring at in the finals, the Super Six has made true on at least one of it's promises: to make at least one star out of it. Ward entered the Super Six a total question mark, a fighter who had not really faced upper echelon talent but was perceived as a potential pound-for-pound talent. So far, Ward has done nothing but back up the claims that he could be the next Roy Jones, Jr. as he has not lost more than a handful of rounds since passing his first real test against Edison Miranda a few fights before the Super Six began. That's the kind of thing that Jones, Jr. [and Ward favorite Mayweather, Jr.] did for so long, utterly dominate opponents so easily that it only left fans and critics able to question his adversaries' credentials rather than Ward's actual in ring performance.

Despite the win, there will still be a handful of “haters” in the boxing media who will try and say Ward fought “a shot Mikkel Kessler, a never-was Allan Green, a money chasing Sakio Bika, an out of his weight Arthur Abraham”, and if Glen Johnson finds his way in the finals, “a 40-something loser of double digit fights that had no business being a participant in the first place”. When measured against the credentials of IBF champion Lucian Bute, its hard not to side with Ward as the best in the division no matter how you try and slice up his resume.

Ward is on the fast track to superstardom and has one more road block to a potential windfall of cash in a unification showdown with Showtime fighter Bute, who has been disposing of his opposition just as easy as Ward. What Showtime has done with a division that had largely been dominated by fighters outside the United States and rarely featured meaningful contests has been underrated. By the end of things, through this tournament alone the winner will be able to make the claim that their legacy holds more weight than that of the undefeated Joe Calzaghe, who dominated the 168-pound weight class for nearly a decade. If Ward can continue making it look easy, it won't be long before he passes up the Welshman and doesn't look back.

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In a back and forth heavyweight affair, local favorite Chris Arreola [31-2, 27 KOs] of Riverside, California stopped the gutsy Nagy Aguilera [16-6, 11 KOs] of Newburgh, New York in the third round of their scheduled ten round co-feature. Arreola, who came in at his lightest weight since July of 2007, brought the fight to Aguilera who surprisingly was able to weather much of the storm and fire back when Arreola seemed to gas a bit. It is unclear if it was a strategy of the Aguilera corner to counter off the ropes but he did so pretty well until the third round when he failed to fire back enough before referee Raul Caiz, Jr. halted it at 1:58 of the third.

“I wasn't worried about my stamina,” exclaimed Arreola following the win. “I'm gonna be back in the gym on Tuesday. I'd like to get a title shot and bring back the title to America.”

2008 U.S. Olympian Javier Molina [6-0, 4 KOs] of Norwalk, California kept his perfect record intact as he outboxed Hastings, Minnesota's Danny Figueroa [3-2, 2 KOs] over four competitive but clear rounds en route to a unanimous decision victory. Molina controlled the distance with his jab and outfought Figueroa on the inside to control each stanza.

In a heavyweight walkout bout, Bowie Tupou [21-1, 16 KOs] of Los Angeles, California scored an abrupt stoppage of former world ranked heavyweight Manuel Quezada [29-7, 18 KOs] in round seven of a scheduled ten-round heavyweight contest. Quezada was controlling the fight the whole way until the end of the sixth when Tupou landed a hard enough series to stun the former #3 WBC heavyweight. Quezada had his nose busted in round seven and was dropped, not reaching his feet before the count of ten. The fight was halted at 53 seconds of the round.

Fellow 2008 U.S. Olympian Shawn Estrada [12-0, 11 KOs] of East Los Angeles, California stopped the overmatched Joseph Gardner [7-3-1, KO] of Woonsocket, Rhode Island with a right-left hook combination at 1:27 of the first round. Estrada came into the bout wildly overweight, showing a lack of integrity for the sport by not giving it his full focus. Estrada came in close to the light heavyweight limit while his opponent was below the super middleweight one. This comes after Estrada looked to be on the right track following a couple incidents that were reported by low brow boxing journalists.

Van Nuys, California based junior welterweight Andrey Klimov [11-0, 6 KOs] scored a third round technical knockout of former Peterson brothers sparring partner Ty Barnett [18-2-1, 12 KOs] of Washington, D.C. in a scheduled six-round bout.

Fellow Van Nuys prospect Matt Villanueva [6-0, 5 KOs] earned a four-round nod over the gamer than his record would indicate Frank Gutierrez [2-10-2, KO] of Highland, California in a bantamweight bout. Villanueva's class was clearly higher than his opposition's but Gutierrez showed tremendous heart as he kept going despite being outgunned in every sense of the word.

Junior middleweight Armenian Armen Ovesepyan [11-0, 9 KOs] ended things early, stopping Guadalajara, Mexico based Arturo Brambilla [9-15, 4 KOs] in their four-round scheduled bout. The finishing punches were a left-right combination upstairs that dropped Brambilla to the canvas. Referee Raul Caiz, Jr. waved it off at 2:44 of the opening round.

In a prolonged beating, Dominik Britsch [22-0, 8 KOs] of Bad Friedrichshall, Germany battered late substitute Delray Raines [18-10-1, 13 KOs] of Paris, Arkansas for five rounds before referee Ray Balowicz finally called a halt to the contest at 2:21 of the round in the six-round middleweight bout. Raines tasted the canvas in each round from the second stanza onwards, with each knockdown looking more brutal than the last. To his credit, Raines earned his paycheck on this night as he kept making it back to his feet to take more punishment until Balowicz saved him from himself.

The nine bout card was promoted by Goossen-Tutor Promotions in association with Sauerland Event and Antonio Leonard Productions and was sponsored by Corona.