How Andre Ward has sabotaged his own career

There have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of boxers who have been badly exploited by unethical promoters, managers and other types of advisers down through the years.

It's as much a part of boxing as a crunching knockout.

But then there is the curious case of Andre Ward, the great super middleweight champion who has essentially shunted himself to the background.

When Ward defeated Chad Dawson at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 9, 2012, he was on the verge of big things. He was Russell Wilson heading into Super Bowl XLVIII, a mega-talent about to explode on the big stage.

It's been nearly three years since Ward, in perhaps the most magnificent performance of a stellar career, stopped Dawson in the 10th round. Yes, Dawson had struggled with the 168-pound super middleweight limit, but he was still a talented and dangerous fighter on that date, and Ward decimated him, using defense and offense in a performance that should have vaulted him to superstardom.

Instead, he's mostly sat silent, fighting injuries and then his promoter and essentially sabotaging his own career.

He's fought once since that memorable night, a one-sided victory on Nov. 16, 2013, against an overmatched Edwin Rodriguez.

On Saturday, Ward will return to boxing for the first time since he defeated Rodriguez when he faces Paul Smith at Oracle Arena in a fight to be televised on BET.

Ward's bout is one of several televised bouts on Saturday, and among the least interesting.

Fox Sports has an IBF middleweight title fight between David Lemieux and Hassan N'Dam. NBC will broadcast an outstanding welterweight bout between Adrien Broner and Shawn Porter from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Both of those fights promise action, and are competitively matched.

Ward, on the other hand, is an unknown. He isn't fighting on HBO because he wanted a tune-up and HBO officials weren't about to pay him his minimum guarantee for a tune-up fight.

Smith, who fought on the reality series "The Contender", enters the fight off back-to-back losses to Arthur Abraham, a former champion who isn't remotely in Ward's league.

Ward isn't apparently confident enough in his ability to take on a more highly regarded opponent coming off his 582-day layoff.

If he wants to play it safe and protect his perfect record, that's up to him. But the public doesn't have to watch, or act like it cares.

The fact that Ward was inactive so long was all his own doing, which is the sad part. He engaged in a lawsuit against his promoter, the late Dan Goossen, in a bid to earn free agency.

Goossen won several arbitration rulings and court decisions prior to his untimely death in September. That essentially freed Ward of his deal with Goossen and allowed him to sign with Jay Z's Roc Nation.

Ward alleged violations of the Muhammad Ali Act, but none was found.

Fighters should stand up for themselves and take an active interest in the management of their careers. But what is troubling is that Ward willingly signed with Goossen multiple times.

He is the last American male to win a boxing gold medal in the Olympics, having done so in 2004 in Athens. He signed with Goossen out of those Olympics.

Here's the strange part about Ward's choice: He voluntarily re-signed with Goossen, then sued to get out of the deal.

And instead of fighting while the court case was being determined, Ward was willing to withhold his services and jeopardize his career in order to be declared free.

The trouble with that is, sitting out is rarely the right answer for a fighter in a sport where careers are notoriously short and the public has a minute attention span.

Ward was just beginning to build a reputation in 2012 after the Dawson fight when things turned around. An injury kept him out for 14 months, then he sued Goossen. That kept him out another 17 months.

And it's important to remember that Ward is the one who chose to sign with Goossen. Perhaps he feels he would have been better off with another promoter, and that quite possibly could be true.

It's hard to fault Goossen too much, though, for his work with Ward, considering he helped get him into Showtime's Super Six tournament and then landed him a deal with HBO.

Ward had a series of big fights under Goossen's direction and he made a lot of money.

Could he have made more money, and could he have been marketed better so that he would have been more attractive to sponsors? Sure.

But he landed announcing gigs, first with Showtime and then with HBO, which gave him the opportunity to get plenty of face time with the boxing audience.

He says he's comfortable with his choice, and in the end, if he's happy, that's all that matters.

But there were ways around his issues with Goossen. He could have continued to fight while his legal team looked to free him of his contract. And if there was an amount of money his legal team felt Goossen was withholding improperly that belonged to Ward, that could have been put into an escrow account and decided by a judge or a jury at a later point.

The bottom line is that there were options, and rather than use them, Ward chose to sit out and deprive not only Goossen but the public the opportunity to watch him fight.

It made no sense at the time he decided to shut it down, and it makes no sense now that he's on the verge of a return.

He's lost a lot, in terms of money, prestige and reputation, and whether he gets it back is a significant question.

Hopefully, it will all have been for the better and works out essentially the way he wanted it to.

It's no guarantee, though, and he's again fighting a lesser opponent away from the spotlight.

It won't be long before the wisdom of his choices will become apparent for all to see.

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