In just a few hours I will be sitting down to watch a classic matchup of the "Boxer" versus the "Puncher". The "Boxer" in this fight, Andre Ward, is undefeated in 18 matches and won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics for the US in the Light Heavyweight division. The "Puncher" is Colombia's Edison Miranda who has 32 wins and 28 knockouts! I have to say I am excited about this fight. Ward is a very good boxer but hasn't had any tough competition yet. His biggest step up so far was his last fight with Henry Buchanan where he pounded out an easy 12 round decision. Miranda has been in tough many times already having had 2 fights with middleweight kingpin Arthur Abraham, Kelly Pavlik who is also a middleweight champion, and strong Allan Green. The professional experience, and power edge goes to the hard punching Miranda but Ward was a highly decorated amateur star with excellent technical abilities. Ward is also the younger fighter by 3 years. How will this play out? It's a tough call for me. I am sitting right in the middle this time. Having watched them both fight many many times I am leaning towards a decision victory for Ward after outboxing Miranda and staying away from exchanges. BUT...if there is one thing Miranda does exceedingly well...that's punch hard...very very hard. For evidence of that you just have to look back to his first fight with Germany's Arthur Abraham and the damage he did to Abraham by breaking his jaw in two places by the 5th round.
Although the amazing part to that story is that Abraham continued to fight with the broken jaw and won the decision over Miranda! Ward has been knocked down only once in his career but the fighter that dropped him was not known to be a puncher. So does that tell us something about his chin? Or was that just a lucky shot? Well Miranda is going to put that chin to the test tonight. Miranda has been stopped twice before, once in the rematch with Abraham, and again by Kelly Pavlik. But both those fighters are power punches, I wouldn't necessarily classify Ward as a power puncher. So I can definitely see Ward boxing his way to a decision tonight but it would not surprise me either if Miranda spoiled those plans and knocked him out. Should be interesting either way!
You were dead on about Andre Ward in this fight. As for Edison Miranda that's another story. He has what I call the 2 T's syndrome. "Tough" but "Terrible".
ReplyDeleteDifficult to see where Miranda can go from here. He´s still a name fighter with a big punch and gave Pavlik a good fight but I think his reputation was made in the first Abraham fight. He´s fun to watch,his horrible past makes you root for him though he motormouth is annoying but this defeat puts him at the end of the queue. Shame cause would have liked to have seen him against Froch though Edison against Jermaine Taylor or Jeff Lacy would be great. Ward is very good but not exciting. Still he looks like a champion in the making.
ReplyDeleteWard controlled the distance with the jab and then closed the distance to smother Miranda's power which proved to be the correct tactic. I also liked how Ward didn't shy away from any exchanges and used his superior footwork to turn Miranda and counter. As for Miranda, I agree that he'll be perfect for Jermain Taylor's comeback fight.
ReplyDeleteMiranda's accuracy is terrible. But I give Ward credit he took all the punches very well when Miranda did actually land. And Miranda looked spent by the third round....good win for Ward.
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