Photo By Tom Hogan
Andre “Son Of God” Ward is a great fighter, there’s really no disputing that. Starting in 2009 with Showtime’s Super Six Super Middleweight tournament, he effectively cleaned out the entire division. He defeated Mikkel Kessler with ease, shut out Allan Green before Green became awful, embarrassed Arthur Abraham, and despite what two asshole judges thought, soundly outclassed Carl Froch. He then fought Light Heavyweight champion Chad Dawson and kicked the shit out of him. It was a fantastic, destructive, epic performance, one that confirmed his place among the very elite. That fight took place just over three years ago.
Once thought of as a defensive, boring fighter, he shed that label with a surprising show of power in detonating Dawson. He also brought in a decent crowd for the fight. That wasn’t an easy thing to do with a guy like Dawson, whose attendance numbers generally rivaled those of your local J.V. Basketball squad. He had the boxing world by the balls. All he had to do was keep fighting. That should have been simple, considering that fighting was what he did for a living, aside from causing narcolepsy in roughly a million viewers as a commentator on the occasional HBO broadcast.
But no, he went a different route. A route that led him into the courtroom, where he took one giant L after another in trying to sue his promoter, Dan Goossen. If Ward’s issue with Goossen was that he scored the fighter huge opportunities despite not having a fan base or style that was pleasing on the eyes early on, then he made the right choice. His problem, according to the court, was that he was trying to get out of a perfectly fair and valid contract.
I don’t claim to know why. I don’t really care, nor did anybody else. Maybe he was betting on fans desperately clamoring for his return to the ring. He fought once in 2013, in an awful, hideous mess of a bout with Edwin Rodriguez. He then sat on the shelf until June of this year. He came back with a new promoter, Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports, and beat a fat guy’s ass on BET.
NOW THINGS WERE HAPPENING FOR HIM!!!
Now, since Gennady Golovkin fights at Middleweight, and has been so starved for a big fight that he’s called out basically everyone from 154-168, Ward popped up as a possible opponent. This is a fantastic matchup. Ward is a brilliant boxer, while Golovkin is a wrecking ball with fists. Hopefully, the fight happens someday. But it will absolutely not happen anytime soon unless Ward gets his head out of his own ass. Golovkin, or at least, Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, and Ward have done some verbal jousting in the past. It hasn’t really gone anywhere. But now here’s Ward, fresh off a win over a horrible opponent, his first fight in nearly two years, claiming GGG is ducking him.
When Ward was on his self-chosen hiatus, Golovkin was building his following. By the time Ward seemed ready to finally return to action, Golovkin was a full-fledged star. And in October, he’ll be taking on David Lemieux in a sensational battle on HBO Pay-Per-View. It will likely be a very successful endeavor–both fighters bring nothing but pain for opponents and excitement for fans. So the very thought of Ward attempting to dictate terms to GGG is not only hilarious, but extremely predictable, because “Son Of God” is completely delusional. That is a weird sentence to write.
This last outburst from Ward will probably amount to nothing more than another pissing match between fight fans. And though Ward often seems confused about his own value as a boxer, he’s no dummy–he has to see that Golovkin has a chance at a MASSIVE FIGHT if he’s successful against Lemieux. Cotto vs. Canelo is just a month later, and Golovkin seems poised to take on the winner, especially if that winner is Canelo. Ward, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing coming up.
Ward got Dawson to drop down to 168 without much resistance at all. But he holds zero cards now over any of the big-named fighters, except maybe Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but who the hell knows what Chavez will do next. He’s as nutty as Ward is. If Ward thinks guys like Golovkin and Sergey Kovalev will not only agree to a 50/50 share (which is ludicrous), but meet him at his own weight, these fights aren’t happening. Ever.
And maybe he’s okay with that. Maybe he’ll be content to fight guys like Arthur Abraham, or Badou Jack, or James DeGale. Perhaps he’s looking for something where the negotiations end up in his favor. He’ll be able to say that the big names don’t want to fight him, and he’ll technically be correct. But he won’t be right. Not by negotiating like Floyd Mayweather with none of his clout or leverage.
At least Ward is fighting again. His talent is undeniable, and with a few more bouts, he might end up back where he left off. But it has to sting when he thinks about the fact that he’s fought twice since 2013, and his momentum has been long drained.
That momentum will be hard to get back. He might hold a decent hand, but he doesn’t realize that the good players don’t need to ante up with him. They’ll just move to another table.
