The Jury Is Still Out on Andre Ward Ahead of Sullivan Barrera Fight

Andre Ward, boxing’s newest poster boy for polarization, makes his triumphant return to the squared circle on Saturday night when he battles undefeated Cuban light heavyweight hitter Sullivan Barrera on HBO.

Perhaps triumphant is the wrong word, since it’s entirely possible you didn’t even know there was a fight of some significance happening this Saturday night, and it’s (once again) taking place away from boxing hotbeds at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.

We’re not going to say you should clear out all your plans and get your popcorn and a cold one to sit down and watch Ward, one of the sport’s top chess players but often a bore to the casuals, but the fight has more oomph and significance than first glance might indicate.

Ward, of course, is the mercurial former undisputed king of the super middleweight division. He got there by roasting several top-level fighters, including Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch.

He followed up with a ruining of Chad Dawson before turning in his trunks for a suit and gloves for legal briefs while suing his late promoter Dan Goossen several million times (hyperbole) and losing each and every step of the way.

You know what they say about out of sight, out of mind?

Ward wasn’t completely out of sight—he was a frequent commentator on HBO broadcasts—but his position was subsumed by fighters like Gennady Golovkin and Sergey Kovalev, both of whom operated in weight classes flanking his and, you know, actually fought.

So that brings us back to Barrera and Saturday night.

The Cuban says all the right things, or at least the things we’ve become accustomed to hearing from a fighter who will enter the ring as a significant underdog. He’s going to shock the world, we’re underestimating him and all that jazz.

When you’re around this sport long enough, you learn to never dismiss or take seriously those type of statements. You just watch and see.

But this fight isn’t about Barrera. Sorry, kid. It’s about Ward—at 32 years old and with just three fights over the past four years since beating Dawson—and whether he can be a true light heavyweight force and foil for the Russian Krusher who (hopefully) awaits at the end of the year.

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Is that open for debate?

It is sacrilegious to some in the boxing business to even bring up whether Ward still has the will and gumption required to be the guy who used speed, a piston-like jab and a boxing IQ to see the board and think three or four steps ahead to embarrass his opponents.

Can he still be that guy?

And, perhaps more poignantly, does he want to be?

Ward’s recently signed contract with HBO called for a pair of fights before a pay-per-view showdown (the first foray for both men into that market) with Kovalev for all the light heavyweight marbles that matter in the fall.

He was supposed to face the brutally pedestrian (being generous) Alexander Brand on the undercard of Miguel Cotto vs. Canelo Alvarez, but that fight fell through when Ward withdrew late in the game with a knee injury.

There’s some question (possible contention) between HBO and Ward’s team over whether or not the fight that didn’t happen counts toward the deal, or if Ward (should he choose) is entitled to a second tune-up bout over the summer before challenging Kovalev, who will also take an interim bout in Russia.

Much of it comes down to how Ward looks against Barrera—if he looks good and feels comfortable, it should be a green light—and whether HBO is willing to risk a high-profile fight in a year that thus far has fallen increasingly short on those.

Another wrinkle in that mess is whether HBO wants to go through the stress of making another fight with Ward, who took forever to sign on the dotted line with Barrera. ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael called the process “ridiculously complicated for no real reason.”

Ridiculously complicated might just need to become Ward’s moniker, though it’d probably be pretty difficult to fit that on a pair of trunks.

We may not know whom he’s fighting after Saturday, but we do know he should get a good test against Barrera, one that’ll potentially shape the rest of the boxing year, so let’s just go with that for now and see how it shakes out.

At least he’s back in the ring.