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Facing Ward: Smith
- Updated: November 17, 2016
Ahead of Sergey Kovalev’s light-heavyweight unification defence against Andre Ward, we asked Paul Smith to reveal his own experience of facing the masterful American.
Smith travelled to Oakland, California, last year to take on Ward, but was comprehensively stopped in the ninth round.
Kovalev will defend his WBO, WBA Super and IBF world titles against former super-middleweight supremo Ward this Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, live on Sky Sports, and Liverpool’s Smith has offered his own insight into facing the Californian.
How do you plan for Andre Ward?
The gameplan that most fighters adopt is to go in there, absorb the sharp stuff early on and look to catch Ward on his chin. The majority of fighters only have a puncher’s chance against Ward – that’s a fact – myself included. I knew if I landed a clean shot though, I could hurt him – you certainly can’t outbox him.
What was he like in the build-up to the fight?
In the very first press conference, he was great. He came over shook my hand and showed me respect, but he clearly was not in fight mode. When fight week came, there was a bit more needle, no nastiness, but you could tell he meant business and was a lot …
