Andre Ward asserts there’s no argument about who hit him the hardest across his 32-fight career, even though that opponent never claimed a world title. Ward, who held the WBA super-middleweight belt after defeating Mikkel Kessler in 2009 and defended it six times—beating names like Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch before sealing the crown by stopping WBC-champion Chad Dawson—also climbed to light-heavyweight to topple the previously undefeated, three-belt unified champion Sergey Kovalev. He then retained and even finished Kovalev in a rematch before surprising the boxing world with an early retirement at age 33.
But Ward singles out Edison Miranda of Colombia as the hardest puncher he faced on his résumé, a claim he made in an interview with Boxing News last year. He stated, simply, that Miranda’s power surpassed all others he encountered.
Ward fought Miranda in 2009, two fights before his title bid against Kessler, and won by unanimous decision while making the NABF super-middleweight title defense his lone defense in that division. Miranda would later challenge for a world title twice, coming up short against then-IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in 2006. Four years after that defeat, Miranda was stopped by Lucian Bute in under three rounds while attempting to win the IBF super-middleweight world title.
