Andre Ward v Sakio Bika: Can Ward follow in the footsteps of Sugar Ray and De La Hoya?

One of the shining lights in American and world boxing takes to the ring this Saturday night when WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward tries to achieve two things at once against opponent Sakio Bika – defend his title successfully for the second time, and develop his validity as a new icon of American sport. The fight will be held at the Oracle Arena in Ward’s hometown of Oakland, California.

26 year old Ward (22-0, 14 ko’s) a devout Christian (he sometimes uses the nickname S.O.G – Son Of God) who refrains from disrespecting his opponents and ”trash talking” is fast becoming the standard bearer for boxing in the U.S. The last American boxer to win an Olympic gold medal, Ward’s win in the light heavyweight class at the 2004 Athens Olympics capped a remarkable amateur career that saw him win 114 out of 119 bouts.

Ward turned pro in December 2004 and made steady if unspectacular progress on a diet of solid second tier fighters. His breakthrough win came last May when he dominated dangerous Colombian slugger Edison Miranda over twelve rounds in front of his home fans in Oakland, California. Miranda’s only other defeats had come at the hands of established superstars Arthur Abraham and Kelly Pavlik. Suddenly the 6′ 1” Ward was a top-ten contender and clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Following the win over Miranda, Ward was drafted into Showtime TV’s Super Six World Boxing Classic, an ambitious project that pitted the best super middleweights in the world against each other (with the notable exception of IBF champion Lucian Bute) in a round-robin format, followed by a semi-final and final.

In Wards first fight in the tournament last November, he caused a sensation within the boxing world when he went toe-to-toe with pre-tournament favorite Mikkel Kessler and won a one sided eleven round technical decision (a badly cut eye ruled Kessler unable to continue) and with it, Kessler’s WBA super middleweight title.

In June, Ward won his second Super Six bout, dominating opponent Alan Green to such an extent that the combined scorecards of the three judges was 36 rounds to zero in favour of Ward.

With Roy Jones Jr now in his 40’s and Floyd Mayweather battling to stay out of prison, all the signs say that Andre Ward can be the first new American boxing superstar of the millennium.

In the last ten years, American dominance in professional boxing, especially in the divisions from welterweight upward has diminished rapidly. The heavyweight division for example, for almost a century the near exclusive property of America, is now dominated by Europeans from both East (Ukrainians Vitali and Vladimir Klitschko) and West (Britain’s David Haye).

When America ceases to do well at a sport, it loses interest in it. It happened with tennis, it happened with athletics, and now it’s happening with boxing, where less and less is shown on national TV. American’s will always tune is for the BIG fights, and because of its population of 300 million people, its hardcore of boxing fans is still bigger than most other country’s. But as a sport that grabs the attention of the man in the street, boxing is far less popular in the US than it is in Germany or the UK, the sports two fastest growing markets.

In recent decades, the two non-heavyweight American boxer’s to transcend sport and become household name’s were Sugar Ray Leonard in the 70’s and 80’s and Oscar De La Hoya in the 90’s and 00’s. Both were charismatic and handsome, with exciting fighting styles. Both were articulate and intelligent, a PR man’s dream. And both were Olympic Gold medal winners, Leonard at Montreal in ’76, and De La Hoya in Barcelona in ’92.