Ward, Rigondeaux are Boxing Equivalents of Howard Roark

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In Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking 1943 novel, “The Fountainhead,” a brilliant architect named Howard Roark elects to struggle in relative obscurity rather than to compromise his artistic vision. The controversial Rand, who championed the notion of individual initiative and achievement over societal conformity, depicts Roark—played by Gary Cooper in the 1949 movie based on her best-selling book—as a bastion of personal integrity.

If Rand, who was 77 when she died in 1982, were around today and into boxing, she might recast Roark as a fighter stubbornly resistant to accepting any alterations to his ring style or personal sense of propriety. Rand’s pugilistic protagonist likely would resemble a real-life contrarian like Andre Ward, or maybe Guillermo Rigondeaux.

There are those—and they probably constitute a majority of fight fans—who would insist that Ward and Rigondeaux, widely considered to be among the top five pound-for-pound fighters in the world today when they, you know, actually fight, have inflicted more damage to their own careers than was done by others intent on imposing their values on the intransigent duo. The respective wars of wills, in which Ward and Rigo have spent large swatches of their primes in a sort of self-imposed limbo, call to mind an adamant Roark disinclined to change even the tiniest detail of one of his blueprints.

Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) was widely viewed as boxing’s hottest growth property, and maybe even its most complete operative, when he schooled the very capable Carl Froch of England to win a 12-round unanimous decision and the championship of the Showtime-televised Super Six Boxing Classic on Dec. 17, 2011, in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. The United States’ only boxing gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Ward left the arena that night with Froch’s WBC super middleweight title to go along with the WBA 168-pound strap he already possessed, not to mention shouted hosannas from the boxing cognoscenti who now saw him as the primary challenger to Floyd Mayweather Jr. for designation as the best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet.

But Ward has stepped inside the ropes to ply his trade only three times since that night. He was to have returned to action on Nov. 21 in an HBO Pay-Per-View bout against Colombia’s Alexander Brand (24-1, 19 KOs) in the co-feature to the main event in which Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) puts his WBC middleweight crown on the line against Mexico’s Canelo Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs), the former WBC/WBA super welterweight ruler. But another injury—this time inflammation and constant pain in his right knee that is severely restricting his mobility—again has put the 31-year-old Ward on the shelf and will extend his latest stretch of inactivity at least several more months. He has been advised by his doctor to rest and begin rehabilitation on the knee to reduce the inflammation.

“I’m extremely disappointed that I’m missing this opportunity on Nov. 21, but at the same time, I’m encouraged,” Ward, who would have been making his light heavyweight debut under the auspices of his new promotional company, the boxing division of Roc Nation Sports, said in a prepared statement. “Any time I have had a minor or major setback in my career, by the grace of God, I’ve come back stronger and this will be no different. I’m looking forward to a big 2016. Thank you to all my fans for your support and patience.”

Truth be told, Ward—who hasn’t fought since he stopped England’s Paul Smith in nine rounds in Ward’s hometown of Oakland, Calif., on June 6—has been bitten often by the injury bug. He was to have defended his 168-pound straps against former middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik on Jan. 26, 2013, but he damaged his right shoulder in training and the fight never came off. Even Ward’s matchup with Froch, which originally was scheduled for Oct. 29, 2011, was pushed back six weeks after he suffered a cut over his eye in sparring that required seven stitches to close.

But nicked eyes, banged-up shoulders and sore knees only partially explain why Ward has fought only once in 2015, not at all in 2014, once in 2013, once in 2012 and once in 2011. An ongoing contractual dispute with his former promoter, the now-deceased Dan Goossen, left the two sides so far apart that Ward rejected every proposed arrangement that would have left his friend and business associate, Antonio Leonard, officially unrecognized as Ward’s co-promoter, even though the California State Athletic Association ruled in favor of Goossen in May 2014.

“That’s a friend of mine,” Ward said of Leonard after the CSAC decision was announced. “That’s a business partner of mine. I don’t mind the bad press of Ward being difficult, Ward doesn’t want to fight, Ward’s ruining his career. I want to be in the ring more than anyone else wants me in the ring. I just turned 30 years old (he since has celebrated another birthday). I’m in the prime of my career. To exclude (Leonard) is just unacceptable. I can’t do it. I refuse to do it.”

It was if Rand herself had scripted Ward’s defiant words, the fighter refusing to fight on someone else’s terms just as Howard Roark refused to yield on mandated architectural changes from outsiders who had commissioned the project in the first place.

Not everyone sided with Ward in his dispute with Goossen, who was 64 when he died of liver cancer on Sept. 29, 2014. A popular, gregarious Irish-American, Goossen was posthumously honored with the Marvin Kohn “Good Guy” Award at the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 90th Awards Dinner on April 25 of this year. Even Ward, while admitting his differences with his estranged promoter, was gracious in his comments when news of Goossen’s death became known.

“I am deeply saddened to learn the news of Dan Goossen’s passing early this morning,” he said at the time. “While Dan and I recently had our professional struggles, he was a great man, father and husband. He will be greatly missed by the boxing community.”

Also missed by the same community is the long-absent Ward, a potential victim of ring rust and the aging process as he steadfastly declined to fight under terms and conditions not to his liking. Roc Nation Sports moved swiftly to lock him up as the headliner of its new boxing division, and HBO Sports signed him to a three-fight contract, the first bout of which was to have been his scrap with Brand.

“It’s just the beginning for us, but it’s a game-changer,” David Itskowitch, chief operating officer of Roc Nation Sports’ boxing division, said after Ward affixed his signature to a contract. “He is one of the best fighters in the world.”

It will be interesting to see if Ward is still all that he was once he gets back to doing what he did so well, but years of gathering dust have a way of deteriorating once-pristine ring skills. Until he demonstrates that he is still at the top of his game, or at a somewhat lower level, at least Ward has the satisfaction of knowing that for now he remains a highly valued commodity. Should he swap punches with WBO/WBA/IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev sometime in 2016, as is expected, it would be one of the year’s most anticipated bouts.

Contrast Ward’s enduring appeal to that of frequently criticized super bantamweight Rigondeaux (15-0, 10 KOs), the 35-year-old Cuban expatriate who recently was stripped of his WBO 122-pound title due to what the sanctioning body termed “extraordinary inactivity.” Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2000, 2004), also has had his WBA “super” champ status downgraded to that of “champion in recess,” meaning the exquisitely gifted little southpaw must face the WBA’s reigning belt holder on or before May 1, 2016. Rigondeaux, who fights Mexico’s Mario Briones (26-4-2,19 KOs) for something called the vacant WBC Latino super bantamweight belt on Dec. 4 in Ottawa, Ontario, thus is obliged to wait out the Feb. 27 unification pairing of WBA “regular” super bantam titlist Scott Quigg (31-0-2, 31 KOs) and IBF king Carl Frampton (21-0,14 KOs), both of England, in Manchester, England. But whichever Brit emerges with the unified title is likely to be as reluctant to mix it up with Rigo as he would be to, say, contract the Ebola virus.

No fighter likes to get knocked out, but being embarrassed in losing on points might be an even less desirous outcome. What Rigondeaux does to opponents often leaves them more red-faced than if he had pulled down their trunks or given them a wedgie on television. They are reduced to pawing at empty spaces recently occupied by Rigondeaux, while absorbing quick-handed counter strikes.

But being a maestro of the squared circle does not make for a very high excitement quotient, as WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz, a high-volume puncher, recently said in subtly suggesting he’ll never consent to running the risk of shooting blanks against the make-you-miss Rigondeaux.

“The people don’t like his style, and I don’t think that’d be an interesting fight,” Sana Cruz declared when asked if he and Rigondeaux might ever get together for professional purposes.

Santa Cruz isn’t alone in his belief that Rigondeaux, who has more power than most people realize (consider his five knockdowns of Teon Kennedy en route to a fifth-round stoppage on June 9, 2012), isn’t going to take unnecessary risks by standing and trading with big boppers when he knows he can lead them on a wild-goose chase that is all but certain to reward him when the scorecards are tabulated. It is a formula that enabled him to win seven Cuban national championships, two world amateur championships, those two Olympic gold medals and his first professional world title in only his eighth pro bout.

“I fight my own way, my own style,” Rigondeaux said before he scored an artistically pristine but action-skimpy unanimous decision over Ghana’s Joseph Agbeko in Atlantic City on Dec. 7, 2013. “Bob Arum (the Top Rank founder whose company once promoted the Cuban, but didn’t seem to enjoy doing it) is not the one doing the fighting. If he’s not pleased with me or how I fight, maybe he should consider letting me out of my contract. I’m sure there are other promoters who would love to have Guillermo Rigondeaux fighting for them.”

Rigondeaux, whose nickname is “The Jackal,” was supposed to have his coming-out party as a superstar on WBO 122-pound champ Nonito Donaire on April 13, 2013, in New York’s Radio City Music Hall, a unification bout that was televised by HBO. But although Rigondeaux frustrated Donaire, the BWAA’s 2012 Fighter of the Year, as thoroughly as he had almost everyone else, Arum and HBO officials were bummed that he had given on-site spectators and home viewers another chamber music recital instead of a heavy-metal concert.

After that fight, Arum publicly complained that “every time I mention (Rigondeaux) to HBO officials, they throw up.”

Longtime HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant didn’t admit to regurgitation, but he did allow that “I wouldn’t blame HBO for never putting Rigondeaux back on. I think Rigondeaux is a talented, beautiful boxer, but prizefighting is about entertainment. You want a fighter that can excite.”

It was a curious situation, to be sure. How can one defensive genius with a supposedly boring style (Floyd Mayweather Jr.) accumulate mind-boggling mounds of cash while another (Rigondeaux) be casually dismissed as more boring than watching paint dry?

“In the ring I always feel I can do whatever I want, that I’m in total control at all times,” said Rigondeaux, who frequently has said he is a better all-around fighter than Mayweather, or anyone else, for that matter. “Anybody can beat anyone else on a given night, right? That’s what they say. So let the others think they have a chance to beat me. Line them up. I’ll fight anybody. But the problem is that nobody wants to fight me.”

Even as an oft-ducked pro, Rigondeaux is doing better than he did as a national hero in Cuba, where acclaim does not translate to material riches. In a story for ESPN The Magazine, he mentioned the fate of even the most accomplished of Cuban fighters who choose, or are forced to, remain on the Communist island nation.

“You are a champion, and it means nothing,” he complained. “We are like dogs. After all your time is over, you end up telling stories on a street corner about how you used to be a star.”

The Miami-based Rigondeaux, who now is promoted by Caribe Promotions, last fought on Dec. 31, 2014, in Osaka, Japan, when he defended his WBO and WBA titles on an 11th-round stoppage of Hisashi Amaqasa. He still is obstinate in his belief he need not change his style to suit the wishes of anyone else, but, curiously, now Arum apparently is eager to put him in against another two-time Olympic champion (2008, 2012) with a legendary amateur resume, Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko (5-1, 3 KOs), who retained his WBO featherweight title on a 10th-round knockout of Mexico’s Romula Koasicha (25-5, 15 KOs) Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Should the fight come off, it would pit perhaps the two most accomplished amateurs of all time, Lomachenko having fashioned an almost unfathomable 396-1 record to Rigo’s 374-12. Somewhat interestingly, HBO likely would do the telecast, a new set of executives at the pay-cable giant apparently having suppressed the upchuck reflex their predecessors couldn’t whenever Rigondeaux’s name was mentioned.

“I would love to do that fight,” Arum told USA Today Sports. “I was willing to go into my pocket to do it. The deal I offered was each fighter would get $500,000 and the winner would get (an additional) $500,000. It’s not Rigondeaux (stopping the fight), it’s Caribe.”

Perhaps, by sticking to their guns, Ward and Rigondeaux eventually will triumph in the end. Hey, Roark eventually got to construct his most ambitious project without interference in “The Fountainhead.” In boxing, it would seem, there always are more ways for the truly committed to outlast the opposition.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.