Did We Learn Anything from Andre Ward's Return?
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It was great to see Ward, the universally recognized champion at super middleweight and new face of Jay Z's Roc Nation Sports' boxing enterprise, return to the ring after another extended layoff, even if he was fighting two divisions above his best weight.
Ward dominated a completely overmatched Paul Smith, who didn't even seem to make so much as a cursory attempt to make the contracted catchweight, winning by stoppage in the ninth round.
Nothing about this outcome was unexpected, given the massive talent gap between the fighters, but it does put Ward back in position for some of the hugely significant fights that popped up around him during his 19 months out of the ring.
Golovkin makes the most sense, but Sergey Kovalev is also intriguing, particularly if Ward decides to wave goodbye to 168 pounds and campaign just north at light heavyweight.
He's probably going to need to jump on one of those fights if he wants to return to the good graces of his longtime network partners at HBO.
HBO declined to pick up what was a high-priced sparring match against Smith, which instead ended up on BET, and HBO is not likely to commit to Ward again unless it receives some guarantee of a big fight in the near future.
GGG or The Krusher would both fit that demand, but whether or not those fights happen remains to be seen.
Ward hasn't proved to be a big draw, despite his clear and undisputed elite-level skill, but he's a tough negotiator who is unwilling to play second fiddle to anyone. But you could argue that certainly GGG, and possibly even Kovalev, have already surpassed SOG in terms of star power.
And that makes negotiations very tricky.