There is a conditional clause still in place on the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2011 ballot for Fighter of the Year. It reads: “Winner Ward-Froch.” That box already has my checkmark. If Andre Ward beats Carl Froch Saturday, he will be the 2011 Fighter of the Year. If Froch prevails, he will win the honor. If there’s a draw, I’ll vote for both of them.
The BWAA does not have a Fighter of the Last Two Years category, but if it did, the winner of Froch-Ward would deserve that honor too.
Whichever man wins Saturday at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City – to claim Showtime’s inaugural Super Six World Boxing Classic championship – will have done something unprecedented among modern prizefighters at the championship level. He will have spent two years in the same weight class with five equals and outlasted each of them. The winner of Ward-Froch will have accomplished more in the years 2009-2011 than Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather combined.
That is something to consider when the eulogistic throat-clearing grows this week. As every treatment of Saturday’s final begins with “After two years of cancellations and postponements and withdrawals, when the ill-conceived Super Six finally, finally, finally crowns a winner . . .” you’ll be well advised to ignore it. Anyone who watches Saturday already knows the Super Six’s history and is familiar with the misfortunes that visited the tournament. He also knows the two men fighting for its title are original members who’ve outlasted all comers.
It demeans what Froch and Ward have done to dwell on those who made questionable withdrawals from the Super Six. Those three men – the Americans Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell, and the Dane Mikkel Kessler – are all either back in the prizefighting ring or planning a return. Their withdrawals, then, should be treated as simple eliminations.
Since neither of the replacement fighters brought in on short notice made his way to the finals, we needn’t dwell either on Jamaican Glen Johnson or American Allan Green.
That leaves Armenian Arthur Abraham, whose legacy as an indestructible force suffered mightily in his matches with Froch and Ward. For having made it to every match he was assigned, though, Abraham retains the respect of aficionados who appreciate what durability he showed.
Durability, after all, proved to be the tournament’s most important quality. At the beginning of the Super Six, who thought England’s Carl “The Cobra” Froch would be a finalist? And whatever handful of Brits that was got halved after Froch’s odd victory over Dirrell. Yet, here he is – unbowed if still unheralded.
While the more heralded Brit Amir Khan, to choose a timely example, was beating up light-hitting Paulie Malignaggi and running from Marcos Maidana, Froch chased the reluctant Dirrell and made one of the best fights of 2010 with Kessler – a scrap brutal enough to eliminate Kessler from the Super Six. While Khan was blowing through someone named Paul McCloskey and a spent Zab Judah, Froch outboxed Abraham and outworked Johnson. And while Khan was making his tangle-footed retreat from an 8-1 underdog named Lamont Peterson on Saturday, Froch was readying to go chest-to-chest with a fighter every bit special as he is.
For American Andre “S.O.G. (Son of God)” Ward is now a proven-to-be-special entity. Or as Ward recently put it, “I won an Olympic gold medal and am undefeated in 23 fights as a professional, so we must be doing something right.”
Compare that dignity to the brashness young Floyd Mayweather, an Olympic bronze medalist, exhibited in 2000, when he was 23-0. Within that delta, actually, lies part of the charm of Saturday’s fight: It does not play to stereotypes.
Froch, the light-skinned European, is the flamboyant one in Saturday’s match. He is the man likely to drop his hands and show-up an opponent. Froch is the one who does not hesitate to discuss his hypothetical greatness.
Ward, meanwhile, the black American from Oakland, is the soft-spoken, serious man in Saturday’s finals. He cares little how he looks while winning. Ward is the one who employs measured language, comporting himself as a picture of accountability.
This was clearest in Showtime’s recent “Staredown” program. Though unoriginal in a copyright-infringement kind of way, “Staredown” nevertheless proved much better than the recent HBO spectacle of a Puerto Rican speaking English to a Mexican. For being in their native language at least, Froch and Ward offered revelatory tidbits and were much better than cliché-tossing avatars.
Ward surprised Froch by candidly saying he was hurt in his seventh professional fight by Darnell Boone, a man whose name Froch could not recall but Ward quickly did. Froch then surprised Ward by agreeing that having one’s chin compared to granite – as Froch’s now is – is often the result of poor choices.
Then Froch inadvertently predicted the likely outcome of Saturday’s match.
“I’m telling you now, categorically, you cannot render me unconscious,” Froch said. “I can knock you out with either hand.”
Both men believe that. Ward is quite certain Froch can knock him out. He also knows a knockout of Froch is improbable. And that is why Ward will probably win the Super Six championship.
Ward will not relent. He will not come off Froch’s chest. He will not rely on a punch to change the fight’s path but hundreds of punches. He will not be prone to mental lapses – like what Froch suffered after staggering Kessler – and he will not wonder if his attire befits the world’s best super middleweight, the way such considerations seem occasionally to wrap gauze round Froch’s otherwise clear thinking.
There’s no telling how this match will end. Everything everyone has predicted about this tournament has been wrong often enough for every prognosticator to be humbled.
That written, I’ll take Ward, SD-12, and be certain Saturday’s winner is Fighter of the Last Two Years.
Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com
