his jab to neutralize Froch and beating Froch to the punch from a distance and at close range. In the later rounds, Ward seemed to take his foot off the gas, leaving Froch to win a couple rounds near the end of the fight, though they were close and fairly competitive rounds. An MRI later revealed that Ward injured his lead left hand on which he relied for landing hooks to Froch's head. The hand was broken in two places. Ward noted extreme pain in the sixth round of the fight as well as one week prior, though the initial X-ray came back clear. The judges scorecards were 115–113, 115–113, and 118–110 all in favor of Ward. CompuBox statistics showed that Ward landed 243 of 573 punches thrown (42%), whilst Froch landed 156 of 683 punches (23%). After the bout, Ward gave a victory speech, "I can't believe it, I can't believe it -- it's not so unbelievable that we never thought we were going to win, but now that it's happened, it is unbelievable. We told you this is what we wanted to do. We wanted to fight on the inside and on the outside, and we pulled it off tonight. We were able to beat him to the punch, and that's what won us the fight." Froch also praised Ward in winning the tournament, "Fair credit to Andre Ward. He's very good defensively. I lost the fight, fair and square. It was quite hard to hit him. The name of the game is to not get hit, and he did that well." Ward won the vacant Ring and lineal super middleweight titles with his Super Six World Boxing Classic win against Froch, despite some independent sources rating then-undefeated IBF champion Lucian Bute at number one or two at the time. The fight peaked at 580,000 viewers on Showtime. The World Boxing Council Board of Governors voted to make Ward "Champion in Recess" due to a broken hand Ward had sustained during the Super Six tournament. Ward vs. Dawson Ward's next fight was announced on June 22, 2012, to take place at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California on September 8, 2012, against The Ring and lineal light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson. The fight, billed as "Ward vs. Dawson – World Champions – Made In America'' took place at 168 lbs for Ward's super middleweight titles. Dawson was coming