By Lem Satterfield

BoxingScene.com caught up with WBA super middleweight king Andre Ward to discuss Saturday night's unanimous, technical beat-down of a decision over former middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in the semifinal of Showtime's World Super Middleweight Classic.

The 27-year-old Ward rose to 24-0, with 13 knockouts against the 31-year-old Abraham (32-2, 26 KOs), winning every round on one card and all but two on that of the two other judges at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

The drubbing sets up a clash with the winner of a June 4 match featuring WBC titlist Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KOs) and ex-world champion Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KOs).

The loss was the third straight in the tournament for Abraham, who had scored two straight knockouts before losing by 11th-round disqualification in March of 2010 for hitting Andre Dirrell after he had slipped to the canvas, and then lost November's unanimous decision to the 33-year-old Froch.

Froch will face the 42-year-old, Jamaican-born Johnson  at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall.

BoxingScene.com: Do you feel that you were able to do everything that you could within the bounds of what the referee allowed you to do?

Andre Ward: I felt like I don't know if I did everything that I could do. You know, I was actually a little bit surprised  at the way that my corner man, Virgil Hunter, and my promoter and the commentators and everybody talked positively about my performance.

Because, for some reason -- I don't know if it was because I felt that there were some rough spots in there or what -- but I feel like I didn't do as good as everybody was saying. I feel as if I still have some work to do.

I mean, I still have to watch the tape, obviously, but as far as what the referee didn't let us do, I rarely go on the record and talk about a referee publicly. I mean, overall, I think that he did a good job. It wasn't all that bad. But I'm still trying to figure out for the life of me why we weren't allowed to work on the inside.

Not even sometimes. Not even at all. This is a 12-round fight. I wanted to get in there and do some fighting. He just refused to allow us to work inside, and I have no idea why. That was a big part of our game plan. So, excluding that, I thought that I did a fair job and that I did what I had to do.

Did I look spectacular and did I do what I envisioned that I wanted to do? Not necessarily. But we got the 'W' and we got it done.

BoxingScene.com:  Were you pleased that you were able to execute the uppercut through Arthur Abraham's tight guard as effectively as anyone else, if not, more effectively?

AW: Yeah, I was pleased with that. That just kind of came. I didn't even think about that. It was just a quick adjustment that I was able to make on the fly. I mean, he's already kind of a short, compact guy. He would do this thing where he would just have his hands up and in tight and just duck, basically.

He would bend his head over his feet, and that was making it hard to hit him. So I just, out of nowhere, just started bringing my punches up through the middle. I started throwing uppercuts and he would run right into them. I felt like that was definitely something that I was pleased with. But it was something that I was able to come up with on the fly.

BoxingScene.com: What is your overall assessment of your improvement and your performance as far as switching to southpaw stance, ring generalship?

AW: I think that it was a solid performance. Definitely a solid performance. It was the kind of performance that I needed going into the finals. I mean, when Carl Froch fought Arthur Abraham, you know he stayed away and boxed more.

I chose to do a little bit of both, you know, fight a little bit and to box. Even when we fought, I don't think that I took too much punishment or anything like that. It was just another step in the rung. These are the kinds of fights that you need in order to grow and to get better. I've never fought a style like this.

I mean, this guy was strong and very powerful and he caught me a couple of times and I was able to bite down and to respond to that and to answer back. I just think that it's going to add to who I am as a fighter. Like I said, I've never fought a style like that, but we were able to master his style and to beat him. That can't do anything but to take us higher.