Andre Ward made a successful move up seven pounds to the light-heavyweight limit with a debut victory at the weight against Sullivan Barrera in California.
The ex-super middleweight ruler actually looked the more powerful of the two in the ring and had Barrera tasting canvas in the third session following a classy left hand to the temple. Barrera shook it off well enough but was never really in the fight as Ward dominated proceedings.
Ward?s hand speed was the deciding factor as the American racked up the rounds and Barrera continually cut a forlorn figure of frustration at not being able to land any significant blows in the contest.
After twelve rounds, Ward carded wide scores of 119-109, 117-109, 117-108 and can now look forward to another warm-up fight before facing divisional ruler Sergey Kovalev for the WBO, IBF and WBA titles in November.
In the co-feature, JoJo Diaz dominated Jayson Velez for ten rounds but couldn?t find a way to get the tough Puerto Rican out of there.
Judges at ringside scored the fight 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92 in favour of Diaz who boxed beautifully from head to body at times and looks a certainty to fight for a world title in the next twelve months.
Other results from Oakland:
10 – Super Lightweight Maurice Hooker 20-0-2 KO1 Wilfrido Buelvas 17-6
8 – Featherweight Daniel Franco 13-0-3 TKO8 German Meraz 52-38-1
6 – Super Welterweight Aaron Coley 13-1-1 UD Urmat Ryskeldiev 11-4-2
6 – Middleweight Rudy Puga 8-0 TKO6 Carlos Lozano 7-6
4 – Super Middleweight Junior Younan 8-0 UD Cristian Solorzano 4-8
4 – Heavyweight Zhilei Zhang 8-0 TKO3 Tyree Ortiz 5-3
