Our weekend of boxing action concludes tonight in Oakland, Calif. as Alexander Brand (25-1, 19 KOs) tries to put the first loss on Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) at light heavyweight.
The undercard is a junior welterweight bout between Maurice Hooker (20-0-2, 15 KOs) and Ty Barnett (23-4-1, 15 KOs).
As usual, scroll on down for the live blog. Keep reading for the press release from HBO Sports.
Andre Ward has signed a deal to fight Sergey Kovalev in November. If he wins that fight–going up a weight class to defeat the scariest light heavyweight knockout artist in the world–the world will be comfortable crowning him pound-for-pound king and successor to Mayweather, allowing him to pursue the remainder of his career in the lucrative role of Prince of Boxing. There are just a few reasons why that may prove to be challenging to even the great Andre Ward. One is Kovalev himself. Another is the size leap. Another is the fact that Andre Ward is 32 years old with a relatively modest 29-0 record and recently went 20 full months, including the entire year of 2014, without fighting anyone, due to management and injury issues. This is not to say that Andre Ward is definitively rusty, or that his peak boxing years are definitively behind him. It’s just to say that those things might be the case. Add to that the fact that in the past year he has only fought Paul Smith, who is not a world class fighter, and Sullivan Barrera, who is not a world class fighter, and now, in what will be his final tune-up fight before Kovalev, he is fighting Alexander Brand, who is not a world class fighter. The last real world class fighter that Andre Ward beat (masterfully, it should be said) was Chad Dawson, in 2012, at 168 pounds. In less than four months he will fight Sergey Kovalev, a world class fighter, at 175 pounds. You can see how this may, possibly, prove to be a challenge.
Which is wonderful, unless you are the sort of fighter who takes a 20 month layoff. That can tend to dull the very sort of sharpness necessary for proper decision-making superiority. The only way that an intelligence-driven fighter like Andre Ward can ensure that his fast mind has not gotten rusty is to test it against the highest level of opposition. Last March, against Sullivan Barrera, who is a good but certainly not great fighter, Ward won in a fashion that was solid but far from exquisite. On August 6, against Alexander Brand, he will need to be utterly dominant in order to reassure the world that he is ready for the many dangers that Sergey Kovalev brings.
Brand boasts a 25-1 record that is less impressive than it looks. Twenty four of his fights and wins were in his native Colombia, against opposition I guarantee you have not heard of; his lone loss came in 2012 to Badou Jack, who is coincidentally the only decent fighter he has ever faced. The step up to a man like Andre Ward is akin to being given a place in the Super Bowl after eking out a win in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
The show is on HBO at 10:35 p.m. Watch it with me.
