With the sixth part in our “Super Six” series, Andre Ward makes the first defense of his WBA super middleweight title, dominating Allan Green who showed up, but left his fight at home.
Rounding out group stage-two was the fight between WBA Super middleweight kingpin Andre “S.O.G.“ Ward ( 23-0, 13KO ) making his first defense of his title and Jermaine Taylor replacement and making his tournament debut, Tulsa, Oklahoma native Allan “Sweetness“ Green ( 29-2, 20KO ) at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, on June 19, 2010. Not much to say about this fight, it was very much like Ward’s first round fight except Allan Green was an even flatter, deader opponent than Kessler. Round one saw Green come out taking control of the ring moving forward and throwing jabs while Ward moved in circles to the left, popping a jab to Allan’s mid section. At 1:30 of the opening stanza, fighting on the inside, Ward landed a crisp left-hook to Green’s jaw, then went back to landing jabs to Green’s stomach. Ward was landing hard hooks upstairs while wrapped up with Green and already leading in with his head and shoulder bullying Allan. The beginning of the first saw Allan having success coming forward while jabbing and controlling the real estate then he stopped midway through and could never recapture it.
Ward started jumping in at the onset of the second and holding while utilizing dirty boxing then would jump out moving to the left. All the contact was being initiated by Ward in the early going and through the evening with Green barely throwing. Ward landed a nice left-hook upstairs at the end of second. Ward landed big uppercuts while holding Green’s left arm with his right, blasting Green with left-hooks to the side of Allan’s head. Allan was letting Ward easily push him up against the ropes all night with no resistance. It was an inside fight taking place in a phone booth with Green against the ropes being bullied and battered. Ward quickly took away Green’s height, length and reach advantage making it impossible for Green to get any leverage on his punches.
In the fourth Green landed a left-hook to the head of Ward, his best punch, and Ward said “come on, bring it on” with his glove gesture then proceeded to manhandle Green, forcing him against the ropes. In the mid rounds Ward won easily using rough house tactics and great boxing and brawling, from inside and out with hard left-hooks to the mid section and crisp straight-rights to the face. It became apparent pretty quickly that Green’s only chance would be a one punch homerun as he was flat-footed and not throwing combinations or anything much for that matter. Ward made a home for his double left-hook to the body and head and landed a huge right to the head a minute into the sixth that seemed to hurt Green. Then he started to pop shot Green for the remainder of the round and for the rest of the evening for that matter, beating him up against the ropes in the mid rounds with left-hook after left-hook.
Green’s confused look will accompany him for the duration of the bout and a lump appeared over his left temple in the seventh, probably from a Ward head butt. Seventh round sees Ward switch stance to southpaw for the first time and sees Green landing a few rights though nothing major. In round eight, Green landed his best punch since round four, a straight-right to Ward’s head and that would round out Green’s success for the remainder of the fight. Ward used his forearm, head butts, and shoulder shrugs all night with Raul Caiz Sr. letting most of it ride. Green began to push Ward in frustration in later rounds and after the tenth, Green walked to his corner with a bloody nose and a hurt ego. Ward landed a big right-uppercut with forty five seconds remaining in round eleven, while Green threw no more then three punches in the round.
In round twelve Green does nothing but look bewildered with no sense of desperation, just takes more big left-right-hook combinations to the chin from Ward to end the contest. The fight was a shutout on all judges cards,120-108, with Ward retaining his WBA Super middleweight strap in a not so exciting one-sided beat down, giving Ward two points and the lead in the tournament with 4 points, securing Andre a spot in the semi-finals heading into group stage-three.