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Excellence in the ring is something Andre Ward was as accustomed to demonstrating as the simple act of breathing in and out. Now nearly 32 years of age, he has not lost a boxing match since he was 12. As an amateur, the Oakland, California, native was a two-time USA Boxing national champion as a middleweight and the only United States fighter to win a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. If anything, he has been even more impressive in the professional ranks, compiling a 28-0 record with 15 victories inside the distance, five of them coming in the Super Six World Boxing Classic, which he capped when he decisively outpointed England’s Carl Froch in the final on Dec. 17, 2011. His body of work that year -- he also scored a unanimous decision over former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham -- was good enough to earn him “Fighter of the Year” recognition from the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring magazine.
However, Ward’s momentum -- after the Super Six, he was widely considered the second-best pound-for-pound fighter in the world behind only Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- not only has slowed but might even have shifted slightly into reverse. In part because of promotional squabbles and in part because of injury, he has fought just three times in the past 50 months. You can still find his name on many pound-for-pound lists, but he now is rated No. 3 by both Sherdog.com and Boxing Scene, No. 4 by The Ring and No. 6 by ESPN.
All of which means that Ward, now promoted by Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports and fighting for only the second time as a light heavyweight, will have to demonstrate that he has not accumulated a thick coating of ring rust when he takes on Miami-based Cuban defector Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) in a scheduled 12-rounder on March 26 in Oakland. Their bout will be televised via HBO World Championship Boxing.
An upset loss would all but snuff out the proposed super fight between Ward and Russia’s Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (29-0-1, 26 KOs) -- the IBF, WBA and WBA light heavyweight champion who might be the finest 175-pound boxer to come along since hall-of-famer Michael Spinks still could make the weight in the mid-1980s. Ward, the former WBA and WBC super middleweight titlist, said he plans to take two interim bouts at his new, heavier poundage before he moves on to a November showdown with Kovalev. Theirs would surely be the most anticipated boxing event of 2016.
“I’m extremely excited,” Ward said. “I’m daring to be great, man. I didn’t have to come up to this weight class. I didn’t have to take on these kinds of challenges, but at the same time, I felt like I did have to. I’m a student of boxing. Throughout the years, all the greats did it. I can go down a list of 20 or 30 guys that went up in weight and became multi-divisional champions. Those are the guys that inspire me and I try to emulate.”
In a manner of speaking, Ward also is emulating Muhammad Ali, who voluntarily sacrificed 3½ years of his prime on a point of principle. However, where Ali refused induction into the Army on religious grounds, Ward was steadfast in his refusal to enter the ring for his now-deceased promoter, Dan Goossen, despite two judgments by an arbitrator that Goossen’s contract with him was valid.
“I try to be a man of principle and a stand-up individual,” Ward said in 2014 when asked about the impasse. “I was raised in the belief that right is right and wrong is wrong. My back was forced against the wall, where I had to do what I did.”
Goossen -- who, it should be noted, was the posthumous recipient of the BWAA’s Marvin Kohn “Good Guy” Award for 2014 -- was 64 when he died after a short battle with liver cancer. When Ward’s contractual obligations to Goossen’s company expired, the much-sought-after free agent signed with Roc Nation Sports on Jan. 9, 2015. However, Ward has fought only once under the Roc Nation banner, a ninth-round stoppage of England’s Paul Smith on June 20. That bout was contested at a catchweight of 172 pounds, which means Ward’s meeting with the limited but dangerous Barrera will serve as his debut as a full-fledged light heavyweight.
Ward actually was scheduled to take on the ever-popular opponent to be named on Nov. 21, on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez middleweight title bout, but he withdrew because of an inflamed right knee.
“I was really looking forward to that fight,” he said. “I spent money on five or six sparring partners, physical therapy, a nutritionist, I mean, the whole nine yards, but what happened, happened. I had to move on. You can’t look back. I never want to put out a product that’s not 100 percent.”
The 33-year-old Barrera, who at 6-foot-2 is two inches taller and, from all external appearances, more physically imposing than Ward, knows he cannot outbox even a somewhat out-of-sync version of his celebrated opponent. Then again, he does not plan to try.
“The way I have to win this fight is to knock out Andre Ward,” said Barrera, who is promoted by Main Events, which perhaps not coincidentally is also Kovalev’s promotional company. “Like every opponent, I am going to try to destroy him. I’m a much bigger guy, a much stronger guy. I guarantee that Ward hasn’t been hit by anyone as strong as me.”
Barrera is also the much busier fighter, having fought three times in 2015. He figures the activity will work to his advantage, though Ward does not believe that will be the case.
“I’ve fought bigger guys my whole career,” he said. “It’s something I’m accustomed to doing. I’m fairly comfortable fighting guys that look physically bigger. My brother [Jonathan], who I grew up with, is two or three inches taller than me, and I went to war with him every day. I’m not saying [Barrera is] not a skillful guy, but he’s a power guy. He comes to try to kick the front door down. He believes in his power. That’s who he is.”
What of Barrera’s assertion that his more active ring schedule also is a plus?
“If a fighter stays in the gym -- which I try to do year-round -- he naturally starts to evolve,” Ward said. “Your game gets more and more seasoned. You become more efficient.”
We shall see. If Ward can approximate the kind of performance he gave in dominating the highly regarded Froch and then do it again in another interim bout, his possible November clash with Kovalev might not just be for a slew of alphabet championships but for the top spot on all those pound-for-pound lists.
“No fighter, including me, can give himself that mantle,” Ward said. “I’ve been as high as No. 2, but you have to go out there and prove it. I don’t always agree with what the pound-for-pound rankings are, but it’s not something that I feel I need to speak out about. I want to make it to where [my claim to No. 1] is undeniable. That’s what drives me.”
‘The Real Rockys’
You know the names: Rocky Marciano, Jake LaMotta, Carmen Basilio, Rocky Graziano, Willie Pep, Joey Giardello, Nino Benvenuti, Willie Pastrano, Pete Herman (Pietro Gulotta), Tony Canzoneri, Lou Ambers and Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini. They are all Italian or Italian-American boxers who were so accomplished that they are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
You also know some of the slurs once directed at them, and fighters like them, because of their ancestral roots: “Wop” and “dago” among the more common putdowns. America might be the land of opportunity, but it also has been the land of subtle and not-so-subtle biases. In addition to the most obvious targets of discrimination, African-Americans, various ethnicities -- Jews, Irish, Poles, Italians and Latinos -- had to claw and scratch for everything they earned upon arriving on these shores, which made for hard men who often had to earn their respect with their fists. In the ring, those who had known the sting of exclusion in other areas of U.S. society found a way to level the playing field.
The particular challenges faced by and overcame by impoverished Italians who came to this country and their descendants is described in great detail by author Rolando Vitale in his well-researched and eminently readable book, “The Real Rockys: A History of the Golden Age of Italian Americans in Boxing 1900-1955.” As the title suggests, the emergence of the Italian fighter as a dominant subset of the U.S. boxing scene far predates some of the aforementioned notables, whose quest for acceptance had already been largely won by their forebears. Italian-American involvement in boxing began in the 1880s, and the growth in participation triggered widespread success in the first half of the 20th century.
“The book is a gold mine for someone who seeks historical information about boxers of Italian-American descent and how boxing has played a role in the process of acculturation and acceptance of Italian-Americans by the larger society … It is a valid addition to the sources available to Italians who want to know who they were, and who they are,” University of Massachusetts Professor Emeritus of Physical Education Carmelo Bazzano wrote for a back-cover testimonial.
Even for someone without a drop of Italian blood -- although I did have an uncle by marriage named Angelo Bonano, which I suppose counts for something -- I found Vitale’s book to be part scholarly treatise and part biographical adventure, as entertaining as it is informative. I recommend it to anyone looking for a nice addition to their boxing library.
Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.