Showtime Sports Premieres 'S.O.G. The Book of Ward'
Showtime Sports will be premiering 'S.O.G. The Book of Ward' on Friday as they go into the life of Boxing Hall of Famer Andre Ward.
One of boxing’s best fighters, who also happens to be an International Boxing Hall of Famer, has a documentary premiering on Friday and it’s produced by Lebron James & Maverick Carter. 39-year-old Andre ‘Son of God’ Ward (32-0) is the subject of Showtime Sports’ latest documentary, ' S.O.G.: The Book of Ward.’ This documentary has been teased for quite some time, but the world will have the opportunity to see it as it premieres Friday on Showtime.
Speaking of Showtime, they produce some of the most compelling documentaries, which surpass most networks except for ESPN’s ‘30 for 30’ series, which I have to say is neck and neck with Showtime. When it was first announced that Showtime would deliver the story of Ward, it caught the attention of fans and casuals alike. Showtime has a reputation for delivering high-level content and telling the story in a way that captures the imagination of the people watching the program.
The story of Ward is one that fans would be interested in as he has kept things close to the chest until now. Whether he did that strategically to get to this moment or if it just worked out that way, Ward’s documentary comes at a perfect time. Ward is still a recognizable public figure who retired from the sport in 2017 but shortly after, joined the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN. The timing makes sense, and now fans can finally get into the ‘S.O.G: The Book of Ward.’
On Friday, Showtime Sports will premiere their latest documentary 'S.O.G.:The Book of Ward'
Like any good documentary, it starts with the most significant present event, the 2022 International Boxing Hall of Fame Ceremony. While it goes through some of Ward’s day, the introduction ends with a quote that many fighters should tell themselves as they go through their careers. Ward said, “I’m going to retire from boxing. I’m not going to let boxing retire me.”
The documentary goes into Ward’s childhood in Oakland, CA, during the 1980s, when drugs were everywhere and ruining people’s lives. Ward had to witness his parents being addicted to drugs and everything that came with that. When watching this part of it, I remembered how hard Ward was on fighters who tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDS) when he was active and started to wonder if his stance on it came from what he had to personally witness as a child. That’s something that came to mind when I saw that and how later on, his father died from kidney failure, which resulted from the drugs he used for years. It was something that Ward had a hard time dealing with and maybe still does to this day.
One of the more interesting moments was the story of Virgil Hunter introducing J-Prince to Ward. Before the Olympics, Ward guaranteed J-Prince that he would sign with him after the Olympics. Once he won the gold medal, he flew to Houston and signed a management deal with J-Prince even though his wife told him not to sign anything while there. Ward closed that session by saying, “You don’t get what’s fair. You don’t get what’s right. You get what you negotiate.”
Ward goes into not being given a fair shake by the media and lightly goes over the Dan Goossen situation that saw him sit out for his prime years. Although I would have wanted to hear more specifics about that part, I guess you have to leave some for the book that he will release later on.
While the documentary hit on several other topics throughout his career, the two specific ones that I found very interesting was the broken hand before the Carl Froch fight and getting his knee drained hours before the first Sergey Kovalev fight. I don’t think that was ever revealed before this documentary, and it supports the theory that most fighters don’t come 100% to their fight, even if they say they are during pre-fight meetings.
There was a moment that Ward addressed the Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin situation where an email was shown addressed to the representatives of ‘GGG’ offering them a fight with Ward and them turning it down within 30 minutes. There was always social media back and forth about it, but this was the first time an email was shown supporting Ward’s side of the story.
The documentary concludes with Ward having his day in Canastota, NY at the International Boxing Hall of Fame Ceremony. They capture his whole speech while simultaneously going through the points of his life that it speaks to and the people that contributed to his success.
Overall, I thought Showtime delivered another high-quality documentary to add to its extensive library. I don’t think we actually got the whole ‘Book of Ward,’ but as I mentioned earlier, something must be left to anticipate with the release of his book in the future. Make sure to tune into Showtime as they premier ‘S.O.G.: Book of Ward’ on Friday.
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