Oakland, California (August 7)- Former lineal world super middleweight champion Andre Ward easily outpointed Colombian veteran Alexander Brand to set up a November showdown with WBO-IBF-WBA World light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.

With the win, Ward, an Olympic Gold Medal winner in 2004, added the WBO Inter-Continental light heavyweight title to his collection which has included WBC, WBA, Ring Magazine, and Transnational Boxing Rankings Board world super middleweight championships.

Brand, a 39-year-old former WBC Latino and World Boxing Federation world super middleweight champion, although outgunned, showed himself to be crafty and defensively skillful. He was a pest all night as he repeatedly clinched at the right times to smother Ward's work. As a result, Ward was unable to stop the iron-chinned veteran but Brand's tactics did not prevent Ward from dominating. The Oakland-based "S.O.G." won all twelve rounds on the cards of judges Steve Morrow, David Sutherland, and Michael Tate. Harold Lederman, scoring the bout for HBO, also had Ward winning, 120-108, while Bobby Davis did the "round-by-round" for TTR and had it 120-109 for Ward. Bobby scored the opening stanza even but then had Ward sweeping all eleven of the remaining rounds.

The victorious Ward raised his record as a professional to 30-0 with 15 wins by knockout. Brand dropped to 25-2 with 19 KO victories.

The undercard was comprised of six contests.

In the opener, welterweight Bihal Mahasin (9-3-1, 1 KO) of San Leandro, California unanimously outpointed Richmond, California-based Mexican journeyman Luis Alfredo Lugo (14-26-1, 5 KOs) over four rounds. The scores were 40-36, 39-37, and 40-36.

San Francisco middleweight Raquel Miller upped her record to 2-0 (1 KO) by outpointing Gabby Halloway (0-2) of Rhoadesville, Virginia. All three judges had Ms. Miller winning, scoring the four-round match 40-36, 40-36, and 39-37 respectively.

Rising Riverside, California featherweight prospect Daniel Franco improved to 14-0-3 by scoring his ninth win by knockout. When he floored Marcello Gallardo (7-4-2, 3 KOs) of Renton, Washington for the second time, referee Michael Margado stopped the bout. Under California rules, the result is recorded as a KO win for Franco at 0:44 of the fifth round.

Light heavyweight prospect Junior Younan (10-0, 8 KOs) of Brooklyn, New York scored a brutal knockout of late substitute Jinner Guerrero (8-7, 6 KOs) of Sucumbios, Ecuador at 1:25 of the first round. My reaction, "Nasty." Guerrero was knocked out cold and while he still was on the canvas unconscious, the slo-mo replay of the knockout was shown on the arena's big screen. Fortunately, Guerrero recovered.

In an entertaining four-round heavyweight bout, Darmani Rock (4-0, 3 KOs) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania decked Mike Kyle (1-3-1, 1 KO) of Boise, Idaho in the fourth frame and went on to win unanimously by the scores of 39-36, 40-35, and 39-36.

In the co-feature, WBO NABO junior welterweight champion Maurice Hooker looked solid. He remained unbeaten by stopping the once-promising Ty Barnett at 2:17 of the first round. Barnett, of Washington, D. C., weighed in two pounds over the divisional limit and was ineligible to win the NABO belt. Hooker, a resident of Dallas, Texas, emphatically rendered that point moot as he improved his record to 21-0-2 with 16 wins by knockout. Barnett fell to 23-5-1 with 15 wins by KO. Hooker is a guy to look out for at 140.