Ward, who is coming off nearly a year of inactivity, failed to knock out Barrera but dominated the fight in the succeeding rounds for a unanimous decision verdict.
Ward was clearly the dominant fighter, scoring at will in the opening round until the third when he knocked down Barrera with a snappy left on the temple. Barrera rose on wobbly legs as he struggled to survive the round.
From the third round onward, Ward was piling up points in his favor until the 11th round when Barrera put up a good fight that momentarily stunned Ward. But Ward came back stronger in the last round to score a unanimous decision win. Judges scorecard: 117-109, 119-109, 117-108, all in favor of Ward.
The 32-year-old unbeaten champion from San Francisco California has not fought for close to two years until 2015, claiming injury and spending time feuding with his former promoter. He was later stripped of his WBA title in February 2015 by the Ring and later in the year he vacated the WBA super middleweight title.
Ward’s sudden decision to move up to the light heavyweight limit of 175 pounds caught boxing fans by surprise as he has been doing quite well in the 168-pound limit.
Reports have indicated that he is looking at a lucrative fight against the unbeaten Russian top contender Sergey Kovalev, who is rated No. 1 in the Ring’s 175 pounds weight limit.
“I probably grade myself a B-minus, I wouldn’t use the layoff as an excuse on any level. But the more you fight, the sharper you get and there are certain things that I wanted to do that I didn’t do tonight. But it just shows that maybe not even being my best, we can still get it done. I wanted to get my punches off a little bit more. I feel if I could have got the right shots in, we could have stopped him. And getting off more combinations and tightening more things up.” Ward said after the fight.
With the win, Ward successfully preserved his unbeaten record with 29 wins while Barrera suffered his first career loss to drop at 17-1-0.
