Ward must be kicking himself right now

yes i completely agree, just because fighter A beat fighter B automatically must mean fighter A beats fighter C just because fighter B beat fighter C. It all makes perfect sense now, this boxing lark is so goddamn simple, why could i never see this before??? i shall never call another fight wrong again as long as i apply this theory...

 

Ward already has 3 belts. I doubt he cares much about the IBF belt. It's just another sanctioning fee. As far as money, he'll be getting plenty of it to fight Dawson.

 

He outclassed Froch who outclassed Bute.

Relax.

 

If someone ever did an exhaustive records check then we would probably find that this theory works well over 50% of the time. Boxing however is about two individuals and how they match up on any given night with nights typically being 5/6 months or more apart for some of the top guys.

 

And, far worse, another mandatory.

 

kicking himself? more like, he isnt wasting his time with bute and his career is enhanced because of froch's performance.

 

His career's enhanced more because Froch did it, as opposed to if he'd gotten the big payday and unified himself?

**** me, he may as well just hang 'em up and call it a career. Who needs money and legacy?

 

This really comes down to Ward wanting to take a break for his own purposes as well as wanting to maximize the value of a Bute fight. It's not unprecedented or unreasonable for the champion to ask for a hyped but unproven contender to legitimize himself.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Hatton had proved himself a worthy contender for Mayweather, but Team Mayweather insisted on Hatton getting a high-profile win on HBO. So Hatton knocks out Castillo impressively and you get a massive PPV with Mayweather vs. Hatton.

A lot of people wanted to see Haye fight a Klitschko when he moved up to HW, but the Klits wanted him to prove himself viable in that division. He did so (admittedly, in ugly fashion) and generates a huge fight against Wladimir. That gravy train could have been toppled against another heavy, but Wladimir made a calculated gamble and it worked.

On the other hand, you get a Ward/Bute debacle, or the Gamboa/Lopez debacle. Or, going back a bit, Gerald McClellan was sent to the UK to beat up on Nigel Benn to set up a mega-PPV against Roy Jones.

The champion can lose out in these deals, but from his perspective, at least when a guy gets exposed it does exalt him within his own division. Calzaghe missed out on an easy win and big payday against Pavlik, but it made him look all the more dominant and at least indirectly lined his pockets thereafter.

I wish Ward had been the one to beat Bute, too, but it's not unreasonable or irrational for him to have adopted the approach he did.

And going against Dawson, we're going to get a better fight out of it, anyway.

 

you're going too far. he's sitting pretty either way. he wanted bute to prove himself, bute obliged by taking a fight with froch, being utterly destroyed in the process. I imagine that ward is losing no sleep whatsoever over the outcome of froch-bute. he has a host of opponents who are willing to fight him, from 160-175. he's just fine.

 

This :deal

 

Who is this noboby that ward fought on showtime?
Is dawson the easy payday your talking about?

Nah the overall feeling about bute in the states was bute was unproven, they didn't need to come up with a gameplan because they did think as highly of bute as his fanboys did. Plus andrade already showed how to beat bute when he knocked him out, only to have the ref save him.

 

there is no way to say that dawson would have waited for ward. The way it worked out would have been the best had bute won the froch fight. It would have set up a huge fight pitting no 1 vs no 2.

Froch had no choice because he didn't win the supersix ward did. Secondly bute is a horrible defensive fighter and ward is better offensively then froch. Bute would have actaully taken a worst beating over a longer period of time. Lastly I call bull**** on your statement about bute being a good fighter that ward made look ordinary. People make excuses for the fighters that ward has already beat bute would have been no different.