This Saturday night, November 27, Andre Ward and Sakio Bika will square off at Oakland’s Oracle Arena to battle for Ward’s super middleweight title. Ward won the title when he upset Mikkel Kessler in one of the opening fights of the Super Six World Boxing Classic. Ward went on to defeat replacement fighter Allan Green in his second match.
The Super Six has taken some serious hits as Kessler, Andre Dirrell, and Jermain Taylor all withdrew to various injuries suffered. This fight between Ward and Bika will not be part of the Super Six, although the title will be on the line.
This fight is actually splitting time with another that actually is still part of the Super Six. Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch are squaring off in Poland and both fights will air on Showtime. The Abraham-Froch fight will air on tape delay while Showtime will be broadcasting the Ward-Bika fight live. The broadcast starts at 6pm pacific, 9pm eastern. I’d imagine the main event between Ward and Bika will start around 8ish pm pacific, but that is certainly subject to change.
Bad Left Hook, SB Nation’s outstanding boxing blog, had some preliminary thoughts while discussing boxing’s TV and Internet schedule this weekend:
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Andre Ward vs. Sakio Bika, Arthur Abraham vs. Carl Froch. Showtime will be showing Ward-Bika live and Abraham-Froch on tape delay. While the Ward fight isn’t officially part of the Super Six, Bika is a better fighter than, say, Allan Green. Ward has quickly built up a reputation as a fighter who uses a lot of dirty tricks, and Bika has long been known as a dirty fighter (only bolstered by his first round DQ against Jean Paul Mendy his last time out, where he knocked out Mendy cold while he was down on a knee). Expect to see lots of flying elbows, unintentional intentional headbutts, holding and hitting and other tricks a little outside the rulebook in this one. Strangely, it has the potential to be both a solid action fight or a straight up stinker.