Universal respect has been a long time coming for the man I consider to be the 2011 Fighter of the Year. The last of the American Olympic Gold Medal winners, Oakland, CA born and raised Andre Ward has been through all the trials and tribulations a boxer should while journeying on the road from prospect to champion. A knee injury, getting dropped early in his career, media scrutiny, increased competition, and finally the gauntlet that was Showtime?s Super Six Super Middleweight World Classic were just part of the process for Ward. Like a true champion, Ward took it all in stride without so much as a blink of his eyes.
The Super Six Finals, which ended December 17 when Ward nearly shutout Carl Froch to win it all, was a microcosm of Ward?s time in the sport of boxing. He began as a heavy underdog. Many considered him too young, too chinny, inexperienced or simply not good enough to defeat favorites Arthur Abraham or Mikkel Kessler. By the time it was all over, Ward had run through Kessler and Abraham along with replacement fighter Allan Green. For good measure, Ward threw in a win over Sakia Bika just to stay active when another Super Sixer, Andre Dirrell dropped out. While each fight was a near shutout that allowed Ward to display different facets of his ever developing game, perhaps none exemplified who he is as a warrior like the Froch fight. It wasn?t just Ward?s ability to take away everything Froch does well so much as he did it with a fractured lead left hand.
?One of my last sparring sessions was Thursday [before fight week]. Hit the hand. I banged it up. The X-Ray the next day didn?t show anything. But it just felt wrong. The doctor said to just keep ice packs on and take anti-inflammatories,? Ward told me and co-host David Duenez on Leave-it-in-the-ring.com radio show. ?So we did that the whole week. I would go to bed with ice packs on. In between each session I would keep ice packs, I would tape them to my hand. But the pain stayed with me all the way until the week of the fight. So I had (cut man) Stitch Duran come to my room the night before the fight and show me what type of wrap that we would be using. I put on a ten ounce glove to test it out and I could still feel it. So I knew it was inevitable that I would feel some pain that night. But I had to do it. Everything went fine until about the sixth round when I hit Froch with a left hook and it was kind of downhill from there. But we got through it.?
