By Johnny Walker
Perhaps Andre “Son of God” Ward better keep those dental appointments that keep his smile so blazing when doing boxing commentating for HBO.
Because Ward, it seems, has lost his desire to fight the big names the station would love to see him take on.
Let’s not forget, it was the so-called “Son of God” who, after winning the Super Six Showtime super-middleweight tournament by never once leaving his country, ducked the at-the-time red-hot Lucian Bute before Bute finally gave up on the fight, showed the guts that Ward never has by travelling to a foreign country, and then taking a whipping from Carl Froch, one of the toughest fighters of his generation.
The macho Froch, meanwhile, had previously travelled to Denmark to lose a very rough contest to the hometown fighter Mikkel Kessler by a whisker. The fight was a Gatti-Ward type belter that left the two men very good friends to this day.
However, when it comes to fighting, the winner of Showtime’s Super 6 super-middleweight tournment hasn’t exactly shown a great propensity for going out there and laying down a legacy as of late.
Now, when it comes to winning the Super Six, we have to give the S.O.G some credit. He did, after all, travel all the way the from his home in Oakland, CA, across the country to Atlantic City, NJ, a trip that must have shook the S.O.G’s condidence to the bone, like his namesake having to spend spending 40 days and nights in all those gnarly red states and try to resist going mad.
After all, while other tournament participants such as Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham travelled world-wide to try and become Showtimes’s Super Six King, Ward remained cozily enconsed in the familiar old USA, fighting in Oakland, a city which has all the charm of Detroit circa 2013, and which must have made him feel at home during a win over an out of sorts Froch in similarly dumpy Atlantic City seven days before Christmas.
Rumors are that Froch’s GF Rachel Cordingley and he were spatting over his giving in to Ward and spending the Xmas season in skunky old AC, and Froch certainly seemed sullen and not quite himself when losing narrowly (in the eyes of two judges, at least) to Ward.
The Super Six Winner was then supposed to take on red-hot Lucian Bute in Montreal, but Ward decided to duck Bute and let Froch take him on instead in Nottingham. And we all know what happened there. Froch, pumped up in front of his home fans, tore a brave Bute apart. So much for Lucian Bute, in Ward’s eyes. Carl did his job for him.
Personally, I’m not convinced that because Froch ripped up Bute in Nottingham, that automatically means that Ward destroys Bute in Montreal.
But that’s what Ward wants us to believe. Actually even getting Ward to Montreal for such a match might be tough: “Hey, Froch already beat him, why should I bother?” Ward has implied on several occasions.
Froch called out for a playdate with Ward in England after his recent brutal rematch win over Mikkel Kessler, but Ward priced himself out of such a scenario. One gets the feeling that the same thing would happen should Kessler invite Ward to Denmark, too.
So Ward, who has been out of action for quite awhile with a ‘sore shoulder,” came up with an alternative: to take on Dimitri Sartison for his HBO bosses for September 28. If Sartison sounds like a long way from from the epic battles with Froch, Bute, Kessler and Adonis “Superman’ Stevenson that HBO had envisioned for the Son of God, the network agrees and has now nixed the Sartison-Ward fight scheduled for September 28.
Sartison?
“Naaaaah,” said HBO. “Are you kidding?” Or something along those lines.
Yes, it doesn’t sound like Andre “Son of God’ Ward is too jazzed about doing anything but blinding us with his pearly whites as he analyzes OTHER people’s fights on HBO, while we wait and see if he can find someone acceptable to HBO for himself to tangle with.
You’d think the “Son of God” could do a little better than this: and hey, what’s Lucifer up to these days anyway?
More likely the S.O.G will face off with Thomas “Tommy “Gunnn” Oosthuizen of South Africa, (21-0-2, 13 KOs) who, while he is unbeaten, struggled mightily last time out in a split draw with Brandon Gonzales.
Barring that, maybe Satan doesn’t have much on his schedule on September 28.
Lucifer vs The Son of God?
Let’s see Showtime top that one!
