A closer look at Andre Wards style [Gif Heavy]

As some of you may know Ward is one of my favourite boxers, and one of the fighters I'm most impressed with in the game today, so I made this thread to do a bit of a surface breakdown of his style and some of the things he does well

Wards offence and defence usually revolves around and begins with the establishment of his own jab, and the taking away of his opponents. He uses this to set the rhythm of the fight and control things at his own pace

He does this in a few ways, through use of feinting of both hand and foot to occupy his opponent, speedy upperbody and headmovement (one of Wards habits is ducking low to his right, in almost Mayweather-esque fashion - either to feint the ab-jab, or to evade a potential attack) and a mixing up of going both upstairs with a jab to the head and downstairs with a stiff jab to the abdomen, and all of course, with very quick footwork.

Here you can see Ward during the opening moments of his bout with Froch, with some light feinting - notice how he has a good control of range and has Froch overcommitting and throwing at air - something that would become a regular occurance throughout the bout and would give Ward many opportunities to counter

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Another method Ward uses that stems from his stance (having his right hand glued just under his chin) is the parry and parry-jab, in which he catches an opponents jab with his back hand, and steps in with a jab of his own, below he can be seen executing this move twice in a row against Froch

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Ward also baits the jab (again, quite similar to Mayweather) in order to draw a return jab from his opponent in order to execute a pull-counter jab or hook, again, demonstrated on Froch below (it is also worth noting the forearm afterward, on the opposite side of the referee)

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He will also often feint on his way in with a jab only to throw another when his opponents guard drops, doubling up the jab is a weapon he uses regularly to great effect

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Here again you see his control of distance and footwork has Froch hitting thin air, before doubling up the jab and smothering to work inside

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Below he can be seen throwing a jab, landing, then missing the second one and ducking low to his right to avoid any possible counter, before baiting upstairs with the jab in order to draw up his opponents guard, and then going downstairs

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We can see in the above gifs that Wards ability to beat his man to the punch and his counter ability often has his opponents reluctant to throw due to the risk of opening themselves up, and you can see that in most of Wards fight's his opponent ends up throwing far less than they usually would due to this (and of course, landing less)

'Creating a conflict of doubt'

Ward explained before his bout with Froch, that he wanted to create a conflict of doubt in his and his trainers mind, as to what their plan of action could be in the ring, and you can see that throughout the fight Froch looked frozen at times and utterly clueless, I personally believed Andre Dirrell made Froch look slow, but Andre Ward made him look something else entirely - a man without a plan, this was due in no small part, to Wards tremendous versatility and ability to adapt in the ring

If Ward were simply a pure outboxer as depicted in many of the above gifs - a plan to best him could be relatively simple, trap him against the ropes or in the corner, take the fight to close quarters, rough him up when you can. But Ward is not simply an outboxer, he has demonstrated exceptional ability on the inside and is as tough and crafty as they come - he arguably out-toughed Saiko Bika over 12 rounds, and backed up and bullied both Mikkell Kessler, and Carl Froch, two men who are not only physically superior to him in terms of size, but who are both renowned for their warriors mentality and their willingness to take the fight to the streets to win.

With these attributes Ward makes for an incredibly tough opponent - it is virtually impossible to beat him from the outside, and it is equally difficult to beat him on the inside, this leaves his adversaries at a loss to what to do - you can see after the mid rounds in a lot of his fights his opponents seem completely disheartened, I've rarely seen fighters have that effect on another boxer

You can see in the below against Kessler, Ward attempting to outmuscle him on the inside (a fight Kessler was never comfortable with), as Kessler breaks free Ward is quick to land shots and smother him again and get to work on the inside, pushing Kessler back - it's this type of versatility and strategy that gives his opponents problems, Ward was beating Kessler from the outside, and smothering his work from the mid-range and inside and landing shot and backing him up when he got in close, this left Kessler in a sort of strategic no-mans land

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Ward landing hooks and uppercuts on the inside

Defensively responsibiity

Against Bika here Ward can be seen blocking shots with his glove and forearm before slipping a shot and ripping with an uppercut to the midsection while he ties up Bikas lead hand (again - Bikas reaction on the inside is to look toward the referee, similar to Froch and Kessler in the same situation) After being broken, Ward then follows up with a straight right - left combo which miss, but he demonstrates his craft on the inside by placing his glove on the back of his head and using his elbow to pressure the back of Bikas (a tactic he used throughout the fight) in order to force his head down and make it harder for him to land or outmuscle ward

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Below we again can see despite Ward being the aggressor and pressuring the more powerful puncher, he maintains defensive responsibility with good upperbody movement and accurate shots - reducing Froch to 0 punches landed out of 9 attempts at close quarters, while Andre is able to land a few counters

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Another thing that has impressed me about Ward which can be seen in part in a few of the gifs above is his ability to main composure and effectiveness while transitioning from attack to defence and vice versa - he is rarely in a position of either vulnerability or inactivity, meaning he's unlikely to be caught cold, or outworked - for such a pure boxer, he has a very good workrate, his activity in the clinch while his opponent is usually content to hold and be broken up is one of his biggest assests - he rarely ever lets his opponent breathe either, often punching out of the clinch while his opponent backs off and tries to reset (as seen with Kessler above)

Jab, dip and smother

This is probably the most oft-used Ward technique, he will jab, dip low to his right to avoid the counter, and smother his opponent and begin to work inside, transitioningly perfectly from outside to inside while avoiding punishment and dishing it out on his opponent

He made use of the same method against Dawson, though regularly instead used the straight right to the stomach, instead of the jab

Something else I was impressed with recently was Wards neutralising of not only Dawsons jab and hook but the manner in which he dealt with Dawsons own defence, Dawson, like Ward, bends at the waist on the side of his strong hand to avoid punches, to combat this, Ward, instead of aiming his straight right at Dawsons chin, repeatedly aimed it at his upper abdomen / chest area, which not only avoided having his punch slipped, but hampered Dawson ability to move his body forward through not only the force of the punch, but the wearing down of his body, Ward would then follow this up with a left hook, it was a forumla that worked again and again for him, and was what was used to drop Dawson in the third round

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The site is now telling me I can't use more than 10 gifs per post, so I'll try a more thorough update when I have time...

I've used the word over and over but one of the most amazing things about ward is his versatility, there is not really a style I haven't seen him adapt to and defeat, and more impressively I don't think there is a style I haven't seen him utilize himself, the guy is deservedly high on the p4p list, and very soon will be number 1, if he isn't already for a lot of you