"No, it hasn’t, I gotta be honest," he admitted to Maxboxing."It hasn’t sunk in. It’s still surreal, I mean, I don’t even feel like a champion, yet. I hear people calling me ’champ’ and I gotta stop for a split second and do a double-take and say,’Who are they talking to?’ So it takes some time, it’s going to take a little while. I think when I actually get the belt- and obviously, I had to give the belt( I had in the ring) back to Kessler- but when I get the belt in hand and I’m able to have it for my own, that’s when I think it’s going to sink in. So hopefully I’ll have it by next week."
But the belt is merely symbolic, anyone that witnessed Ward dismantle Kessler knows that he’s now among the very best 168-pounders on the planet and clearly one of the early front-runners to take the ’Super Six’. While he was a decided underdog to Kessler, Ward and his crew believed they could befuddle him with his speed, quickness and lateral movement.
"I didn’t know exactly how it was going to be, I felt like I could stop Mikkel Kessler and I’m not one to tell people this kind of stuff," said Ward, who is usually very reserved. But his trainer, Virgil Hunter, was much more bold in his pronouncements before the fight." Sometimes, Virge, is a little bit more outlandish when it comes to predicting things," said the protege’ of his long-time trainer and mentor."I just like to keep quiet but I definitely had a plan and then Virge told me the whole week,’This fight is not going the distance.’ He kept telling me,’I don’t see this fight going eight rounds if you stick to the game plan and do what you’re supposed to do.
"But at the same time, I knew I was in there with a tough Dane. I knew that he was going to come to fight. So deep down you really don’t know what’s going to happen. You plan to dominate, so the fact we were able to dominate, it made it that much more better, fighting an opponent like that. We didn’t just fight another up-and-comer, we didn’t fight an old contender for a vacant title. We fought a guy who’s recognized all around the world as the best super middleweight in the world."
For over 11 rounds, Ward never let Kessler get on track as he skated around him all night and beat him to the punch continuously. When they got on the inside, Ward did an effective job of tying Kessler up and at times, punched his way free. A few unintentional head-butts would cause cuts on Kessler, which forced the stoppage of the fight in the 11Th round. And for all the controversy that existed in the lead-up to this contest in regards to the appointed judges, that issue was academic, Ward had easily won this fight any way you looked it.
Two judges had the fight scored 98-92 and the third arbiter had it 97-93, all in favor of the Oakland native. The scores may not have been indicative of just how lopsided this bout was. Kessler was two or three steps behind Ward all night.
Hunter expected nothing less."Of course, we didn’t go into it for any other reason but to dominate him," he said." I knew we could and we formulated the plan based on what we saw with Andre. We executed it."
One of the foundations of their game plan was to neutralize Kessler’s vaunted jab by beating him with their own stick. Ward’s jab was the greatest lead-off hitter this city had seen since Ricky Henderson.
"That was definitely the plan," explained Ward." The plan was to off-set his jab with my jab and to jab with him at times and not let him out-jab me." Another surprise was to see just how much stronger Ward was on the inside. When they grappled in-close, it was Ward who pushed forward and worked free. Kessler figured to give up a bit in the speed department, he most likely didn’t expect Ward to be stronger than him."I made a comment at the press conference last night that,’Some guys are recognized as a lot of different things, but I think I’m recognized as one of the most under-estimated guys in the game.’ And when guys get in the ring they see something different. So they get in there and they feel something different. So absolutely, the look on his face, it’s what a lot of people have. It’s the same thing with ( Edison) Miranda said, one of the first things he said was when he got out of the ring was,’I thought it was going to be a lot easier than this.’ And I don’t know what it is, they see one thing from the outside- and this is dating back all the way to when I was an amateur- guys would do the same thing. They’d look and say,’This is Ward? The number one guy? I’m gonna get him.’
"They get in there and it’s something totally different. I think it was the same thing with Kessler last night."
Perhaps what Kessler and everyone else forgot was that when Ward captured a gold medal for the United States in the 2004 Olympics, he did so as a light heavyweight, where the weight limit is 178-pounds. Another problem for Kessler is that for much of this night, he looked like a guy trying to catch a fly with a single chopstick. The most solid contact he may have made with his gloves all night might have been when he touched gloves with Ward in the center of the ring before the fight.
"He couldn’t land the right hand to the head. I don’t think he landed one right hand to the head," Ward recalled."He would throw one to the body, occasionally, but to the head, he never landed. He tried to use the leaping hook and he did catch me a few times with it. But never once did he buzz me, I was never hurt. He just landed a few shots. I think in the course of 11 rounds I only got hit three or four times cleanly. I think that’s pretty good against caliber of opponent of Kessler."
He’s come a long way from the guy who was nearly knocked out by Kenny Kost in his second pro outing and then decked against veteran trial horse Darnell Boone a few fights later. That boy, has now grown into a man. The development of Ward is a testament to the patience and nurturing of his handlers.
Hunter, who is instrumental in guiding this career says,"I think a lot of people, that’s promoters, managers, and maybe even some of the trainers, make mistakes with world-class athletes. And to have someone come out of the amateurs, how can you possibly have a professional fighter just like that? This kid has been an amateur for 10, 12 years. I’m talking about the kids that got over a 150 fights and then started in the juniors, came all the way up. You have to give these kids time to make a transition over into the professional ranks. Now, there are some exceptions, you might have a kid that fought 30, 40 amateur fights and they turn pro and they’ll transition into a pro a little sooner because that real amateur pedigree hasn’t sunk into them, yet.
"So one minute you’re trying to beat a computer and not get touched and the next minute they expect you to sit down on your punches and fight a pro fight."
To use a football analogy, it’s like the college quarterback who runs the spread offense out of the shotgun, who has to suddenly get under center and run pro-style offense in the NFL. Veterans of the game will tell you, professional and amateur boxing are two completely different sports. And if you watched the last few Olympics, amateur boxing has turned into something completely unrecognizable from it’s past.
As for the issue of Ward’s early knockdowns, Hunter, says that once again, it’s all a part of the transition process that all fledgling prizefighters must go through.
"Y’know, they ridicule a kid,’He can’t take a punch, he can’t do this.’ What people forget, in the old days when guys like (Sugar Ray) Robinson days, (Archie) Moore’s days, even ( Ray) Leonard’s days, they didn’t wear headgear. They were used to taking punches with headgear before they even went into the pros. So that’s the difference, you see?" explained Hunter, who adds," A fighter has to all of a sudden take this off and you expect him to be this and you expect hm to be that. No matter how he did, he was a world-class amateur. He hadn’t proven he was going to be a world-class pro. And I think he needed an opportunity and a pace to develop properly and to have a fair chance and not to be subjected to someone else’s time table of development."
Hunter believes that the more accomplished a fighter is as an amateur, the more difficult it will be to alter their style to the pro game because they are so ingrained to box a certain way. But in an ironic twist, the next step in Ward’s development will be to bring him back to what he once was, according to the trainer.
"Before he was a boxer, he was a fighter," he said."I had to modify his style. When he made the Olympic team as a light heavyweight, I thought he was going to grow- but he didn’t. And he qualified at the weight a year-and-a-half out and he never even grew over the next year-and-a-half, he stayed the same. I thought he was going to grow into ’78 and that’s why I knew he was good enough to out-box the ’78’s and win at ’69, 70’, I knew he was good enough to out-point them. So I had to modify the style to hit and not hit and that took a year or so to modify the style and you can’t break that over-night. You have to just naturally let it come back to who he originally was and bring a little bit of the modification with him. That’s what we’ve done."
Dan Goossen, who has promoted Ward since he came out of the Olympics, is hesitant to take credit for the finished product that he has become.
"Look, there’s really no credit we can take from that end of it," he said on Monday." The way I look at it is, it’s always in the hands of the athlete. I mean, we’re always together on the time frame, the movement and when to step it up and when not to. We’ve been here many times before, where we’ve done what I consider all the right moves, but without the fighter winning, none of it comes to fruition. I told Andre afterword, I said,’Andre, I’m just very proud that you did carry this home.’ Because the last accomplishment that you need leading into any promotions is the fighter winning. And Andre certainly did it in grand style."
What was perhaps Ward’s greatest attribute was patience. Even though he came out of Barcelona with a gold medal, he saw some of his amateur colleagues move past him in the pecking order of the professional hierarchy. While guys like Andre Ward long-ago established himself as a staple on HBO, Ward was fighting in relative obscurity for much of his professional run.
"You have to understand, I had my first fight on HBO. There were fights where I would fight on HBO and Berto was off TV and then he began to fight more on TV and I started to get less on TV and then things started to pick up on ShoBox and that kind of thing," said Ward, of his slow rise to prominence."So it was just part of the process. I don’t think I ever got impatient, I just know that this day would come where I would be champion and then I would have to shift gears and then begin to defend my title. I just knew the day would come. You get anxious when you see guys winning titles, young guys that came up from your class. I probably got a little more anxious just as of late, seeing Devon Alexander win his title and Timothy Bradley, I fought Timothy before in the amateurs and we came up together. So as of late, I probably say I really got a little impatient because I felt like the time was getting close."
A deeply religious individual, Ward believed this was all part of God’s plan for him.
" I didn’t get impatient, I understood that Berto’s career was his career. The other guys careers were their careers and I would have my own road. So I was content and confident that the route we took would pay off in the end."
And this route is just beginning.
BAY AREA DRAW
Back in May, Ward drew over 7,000 at the Oracle- home of the Golden St. Warriors- and an announced crowed of over 10,000 was in the house this past weekend. I hear that the arena was ’papered’ but y’know what? In this day and age, it’s still impressive when you can get over 17,000 butts in the seats in this country in a major metropolitan city- especially, one without a real history of boxing.
The thing is, Ward is very promotable. He is the type of individual that can be marketed promoted into a legitimate local draw.
"Well, I thought he was that before we went out there in May," countered Goossen. "That’s why we went down there. It will only get bigger and better for him and it’s going to be beyond just the Bay Area for him. He really is getting ready for the world stage. He’s just someone that- and I hate to make it sound mushy- but he’s just a lovable person. He’s someone that will make classy fashionable and as we saw, no matter how classy he is outside of the ring and how much we’d like to see our kids, other athletes, politicians, emulate Andre’s class inside that public forum, you could certainly see the contrast when that bell rang.
"He was vicious, he was mean. He went out there and did what you’d like to see all your fighters do. Right when that bell rang, he went out there to knock the hell out of somebody."
NO-TIME
A fourth installment of Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez will not take place on February 27Th at the Staples Center as planned. The reason being is that Showtime, like their counterparts at HBO, is reticent to go against the Winter Olympics.
Now, the search is on for a new date that is suitable for this fight. The top priority is to make sure this fight takes place in Southern California, where it belongs. Don’t be stunned to see this fight pushed back into May.
Here’s the thing: the Winter Olympics? Really? I know boxing fans, I specifically know Mexican boxing fans( that’s why they call me Steve Mexi-Kim out here in Montebello/East L.A.) and they don’t give a rats ass about figure skating or slalom skiing. Now, I don’t run a network, but I would think this would actually be a great opportunity for them to showcase their boxing franchise while HBO takes this month off.
But what the hell do I know?
EARLY WEEK FLURRIES
Nonito Donaire announced on his Twitter page that he will face Gerson Guerrero on the next edition of ’Pinoy Power’ in February....From the oops dept.: I incorrectly stated that HBO PPV did only two major events in 2009, when they had actually done three. I had completely forgotten about Pacquiao-Hatton. Most likely because it was so short....So who’s the best current NFL wide receiver from ’the U’, Reggie Wayne or Andre Johnson?....How big is a potential match-up between Pacquiao and Mayweather? The local ABC affiliate out here in Los Angeles, actually talked about the beginning of negotiations on Monday night.....Any questions or comments please email me at
k9kim@yahoo.com....
Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing.....
