For years, Andre Ward was a puzzle nobody in boxing quite managed to solve. Chad Dawson tried. Mikkel Kessler tried. Carl Froch tried hardest of all and came up short. So when Froch was asked to name the one fighter capable of ending ‘S.O.G.’s’ perfect record, the answer said as much about British boxing pride as it did about the man across the ring.
Ward retired in 2017 with a spotless 32-0 ledger, joining Joe Calzaghe, Floyd Mayweather and Rocky Marciano in the rare club of champions who walked away unbeaten. Froch, who lost a unanimous decision to Ward in 2011 in the second defeat of his career, has now picked the man he believes could have spoiled that legacy — and, tellingly, it is a fellow Brit.
Froch’s pick to beat Andre Ward — with one big caveat
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Froch made his choice in comments carried by Boxing News Online.
I’d absolutely love to have seen Andre Ward fight Calzaghe. I’d like to see Calzaghe beat Ward, and I think Calzaghe could beat Ward.
That man is Joe Calzaghe, the Welshman whose 21 consecutive super-middleweight title defences remain a division record. But Froch would only back him under one very specific condition.
Through gritted teeth, I’m going to pick Calzaghe, and that’s only because I actually think Calzaghe could beat Ward with his work rate. But it would have to be in the UK. No good in America with Steve Smoger refereeing.
Why the venue mattered so much
The caveat is the giveaway. Froch’s pointed reference to Steve Smoger nods to the American officiating he blames for letting Ward tie up and smother opponents on the inside — the same close-quarters game that frustrated Froch and Dawson against ‘S.O.G.’. In Froch’s telling, only Calzaghe’s relentless work rate could overwhelm that ring-smart style, and only with a British referee and a home crowd behind him. It is a hypothetical, but a revealing one from a man who knows Ward’s approach better than most. For more, see where Froch ranks Britain’s finest.
Ward, for his part, left nothing on the table. He beat Dawson and Kessler, edged Sergey Kovalev in a hotly disputed 2016 decision before stopping the Russian in the eighth a year later, then retired at the top. Whether Calzaghe — or anyone — could truly have cracked that code is a debate that will never be settled in a ring. But it is exactly the kind of argument boxing was built on, and Froch, still nursing the memory of his own night against Ward, has just poured fuel on it.
