Ward to make LHW debut against Barrera

Before former super middleweight champion Andre Ward will fight unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in the fall in an HBO PPV event, he will get a tune-up fight in the higher weight class on March 26 at the Orcale Arena in his hometown of Oakland, California against Sullivan Barrera.

The fight was in the works for nearly two-months, so long that Barrera repeatedly took cracks at Ward and his representing Jay Z’s Roc Nationa Sports on social media. Ward simply said that he is committed to becoming a world champion at his new weight class, is in shape and is ready for a fight.

Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) was undoubtedly the world’s best super middleweight but has to take a major layoff, fighting only one time from September 2012 to June 2015, because of legal disputed with his former promoter, but he looked incredible against Paul Smith before forcing a stoppage in the ninth round. And then decided to move up in weight and already has a bout close to set against the champion.

Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) is a tough 33-year-old Cuba who fights out of Miami, Florida. He has great power and has knocked out (or retired) his last six opponents. He was very busy in 2014 and 2015, fighting seven fights over the past two years.

Ward is a significant step up in his competition, however, and Barrera will go into the scheduled 12 round contest as a massive underdog.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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