February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jay Mwamba
Going into his make-or-break fight with journeyman Emmanuel Burton in Hampton Beach, N.H., last Friday, Micky Ward predicted a war. He got one.
The Lowell, Mass., junior welterweight eked out a unanimous points decision after 10 brutal rounds of toe-to-toe action to keep his hopes of another big payday in the twilight of his career alive.
Ward threw an amazing 1,182 punches in the slugfest, but it was the durable Burton, at 26 nine years younger than his opponent, who landed the most shots.
And although a generous winner by scores of 98-90, 96-91 and 96-94 on the three judges’ cards, the ESPN-televised bout was close in the eyes of the broadcast team until Ward dropped Burton in the ninth round with one of his patent left hooks to the body.
"Take nothing away from him, he gave me a hell of a fight and it was very close," Ward, unmarked but fatigued, acknowledged. "I fought a very experienced guy."
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Burton, 24-17-4 when he signed for the fight two weeks earlier, was pinned to the ropes in the first three rounds by his relentless opponent but took all of Ward’s best punches while countering sporadically.
He turned the tables on Ward in the fourth stanza, emulating his foe’s potent body attack despite Ward’s spirited attempts to fight back. The two prizefighters combined to throw nearly 300 punches in that round alone.
Ward took another shellacking early in the fifth round. He looked spent and haggard but sucked it up and came back in the last minute to sting the now arm-weary Burton.
The pendulum continued to swing from one fighter to another as first Ward would dominate a round, only to see Burton stage a rally in the next.
By the ninth stanza, however, Burton appeared to be gaining the upper hand. That was until a left and right to the head by Ward softened him for a paralyzing left hook to the liver. Burton doubled up and went down on one knee.
He took an eight count and was able to survive Ward’s subsequent attack.
They slugged it without as much as a clinch in the 10th and final round, earning a standing ovation from the crowd at the bell.
Ward, a former World Boxing Union titlist who improved to 37-10 (27 KOs), had nothing but praise for Burton.
"I give him all the credit in the world," he said while bagpipes skirled in the background. "He’s a great fighter, tough as nails, and I take nothing away from him.
"I was just the better man by a little tonight. He’ll have his day. I was just the better man tonight."
Asked if he was surprised at Burton’s ability to take his punch, Ward remarked: "I knew coming in that he’d fought the best guys in the world and [that] he’s very cagey. You can’t catch him flush. You always catch on the end of your punches."
His win in the non-title contest, which marked his record 26th appearance on ESPN, now puts Ward in line for a clash with fellow New Englander Ray Oliveira.
The winner is likely to get a crack at the unified world junior welterweight championship after Zab Judah, who holds a win over Ward, and Kostya Tszyu meet in November.
Before the Ward-Burton match, there was a 10-count in memory of Chris Reid, the popular 1980s middleweight known as the "Shamrock Express," who died of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at age 38 on July 7.