By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Oakland light heavyweight Andre Ward decisioned a Colombian named Alexander Brand on HBO by scores predictable as they were lopsided. The match was the final installment of a four-part infomercial for Ward’s fall fight with Russian Sergey Kovalev which will happen unless one of them moves to a rival broadcaster the way Adonis Stevenson did the last time HBO used light heavyweight matches as advertisements.
The problem with Alexander Brand was not his incompetence at any skill save enduring consciousness – fogging up the ol’ mirror these days is the larger part of landing a televised role on the side which is B – but how incompetently he met the hopes of Andre Ward’s promoters Throne Boxing (three shows this year, two of them Ward’s) and HBO who put its dwindled credibility behind broadcasting two Ward warmups in 2016 and two Kovalev warmups in the name of a Nov. 19 match whose contract is signed though its venue remains undecided which makes you wonder what else but signatures adorns this fabled contract. Surely someone between HBO and Throne (remember that weekend we thought Big Daddy Kane’s former hypeman was going to save boxing?) hoped Brand would remind viewers of Kovalev in some way less superficial than complexion. And yet.
Brand retreated from the beginning and made himself a barely mobile bag for Ward to practice on in a way that was near to opposite Kovalev’s approach as possible and practice on him Ward did though without anything suspenseful as peril or, heaven help us, a knockdown. Ward seemed to want to harm Brand in the late-middle rounds but overshot his cross uncharacteristically and made disconcertingly little progress with a leaping lefthook lead. Ward was not much of a puncher at 168 pounds and probably isn’t thrilled to be at light heavyweight with Kovalev there awaiting him but what Ward did have seven pounds ago was a defense that looks less impenetrable today than it did when Ward fought and cleanedout real competition as recently as four years ago.
Part of what goes forgotten in the throes of Ward’s Embarassment Years, 2013-2016, is Ward finished the Super Six undefeated and next fought Chad Dawson who beat Bernard Hopkins five months before Ward iced him. Whatever infamous squandering Ward did after he unbuttoned Dawson that name along with Mikkel Kessler’s and Carl Froch’s composes a triumvirate more impressive than every name on Kovalev’s resume save Hopkins’ which has to have an asterisk, even in this dreadful era, if the name belongs to a man in his 50th year when you decision him. To further incite Soviet apologists let us doubledown by adding each name on Gennady Golovkin’s resume to each name on Kovalev’s resume and diminish Ward’s preeminence in no way whatever: Half-century Hopkins remains the only name deserving mention among Kessler’s and Froch’s and Dawson’s which means, in defiance of what industry and relentlessness publicists have dedicated to the cause, in one meaningful category Ward has accomplished about three times the sum of Kovalev and Golovkin.
But toss that when you consider Saturday’s spectacle because Saturday diminished Ward’s legacy more than burnished it so if you need solace it’s here: Ward looked bad enough against Brand to convince a goodish number of the folks who reliably purchase pay-per-views (OK maybe not Crawford-Postol but most) the guy who needed judges to best a 49 5/6-year-old Hopkins is going to rip through Ward. Kovalev is not going to rip through Ward. If ripping through Ward could be done somebody at least would’ve decisioned him in the past 20 years.
Oddly the best argument in Kovalev’s favor is not Kovalev’s career record but Ward’s recent record. Had the guy who snatched consciousness from Chad Dawson gone directly in the ring with even the current version of Kovalev oddsmakers justifiably would’ve set Ward a 4-1 favorite and should still favor Ward though not because of anything they saw Saturday or anything they’ve seen from Ward’s mentor Virgil Hunter in a decade.
What oddsmakers saw to sober them Saturday from Ward were a few righthands that Branded him. Ward complemented the Mayweather low-lead hand with a low-lead shoulder wrinkle of his own – a terrible idea that defied the extended left arm with which Ward otherwise steers opponents – and it got him clipped a few times that did not tell because it bears reiteration: Alexander Brand is godawful. Worse yet for this morning’s oddsmakers was how Ward dropped to his own right to collect those punches in a way that belied what mobility Ward has or once had.
Ward has narrowed his stance considerably against recent opposition to allow a greater transfer of weight back-to-front when he punches and because widening himself as a target hasn’t been a problem for him – opponents of Brand’s caliber have the same chance of solving Ward’s defense in 36 minutes as a fourth-grader has of solving an encryption algorithm with a pencil. But if Ward doesn’t return his feet to the wide spread he previously employed, against Kovalev he’s going feel fragile. He shouldn’t plan either to be so bored by Kovalev he spends rounds as a southpaw like he did against Brand.
So long as Ward keeps stabbing Kovalev’s gut with his jab, though, he should decision the Russian in a match that is compelling. Not four-tuneup compelling, of course, but compelling nevertheless.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
