Is Golovkin ducking Andre Ward?

By Boxing News - 10/26/2014 - Comments

golovkin445(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Thomas Cowan: It’s now 8 days since Gennady Golovkin annihilated Marco Antonio Rubio in 2 rounds. Golovkin has now signed to fight Martin Murray in early February in Europe. Murray is a credible opponent, a top 10 middleweight who could be the lineal champion if he hadn’t have been on the end of what some felt was a hometown decision against Sergio Martinez last year.

However, it’s not the big fight Golovkin craves. Miguel Cotto and Saul Alvarez can make more money fighting each other in a easier fight and Carl Froch and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr are in the same position.

The Cotto, Canelo and Chavez fights are all HBO PPV worthy and fighting Froch in the UK also brings a big payday for Golovkin. With those options unavailable, should he fight Andre Ward, whose lawyer sent a letter to HBO saying Ward wants to fight Golovkin? If he doesn’t, is he ducking?

Ward is a fantastic fighter, as everyone knows. He’s an Olympic Gold Medallist, he hasn’t lost a fight since he was a teenager and he’s beaten top quality fighters like Carl Froch with ease. He is the WBA/Ring super middleweight title holder and is a top 3 pound-for-pound fighter. He says he wants to fight Golovkin, who wants a big fight, so what’s the problem?

Firstly, there is Ward’s inability to fight. He claims he is free to fight, but he hasn’t fought in a 11 months due to a contract dispute with his promoter Goosen Tutor, which is still ongoing. The chances of him fighting anytime soon look very slim. When he hits a year of inactivity next month he will drop out of the Ring pound-for-pound list, the closest thing to an official list that there is. The WBA and The Ring may also start to take a very close look at his position as their champion. In other words, Ward is becoming more and more irrelevant every day. Can Golovkin, or anyone, duck a fighter that doesn’t fight.

Perhaps more importantly, the fight will be very difficult to make, promotional issues aside. Ward is not going to want to be the B-side to a middleweight from Kazakhstan who hasn’t fought elite opposition. The reality however, is that Golovkin is a bigger draw in Ward’s homestate than he is. The StubHub was sold out last week and Golovkin can sell close to 10,000 tickets at Madison Square Garden on the East Coast too. He drew the second best TV ratings of the year last week, just behind Chavez. His exciting, aggressive style generates interest from fans and Ward’s clinching, defensive style doesn’t. Right now, neither are big, crossover stars but Golovkin seems much closer to achieving that than Ward.

The fact that neither are crossover stars brings us to another issue. Ward-Golovkin, or Golovkin-Ward, isn’t a pay-per-view fight. I’d pay $70 for it, I’m sure many reading this would too, but neither has the fanbase right now to be an A-side on PPV. It just isn’t viable. It’s a great fight, but so is Hopkins-Kovalev, but it’s on regular HBO for a reason.

Now, will Ward really want to fight Golovkin for similar money to what he made for fight Edwin Rodriguez? Will Golovkin want to fight Ward for the a bit more money than he made against Rubio? I find it unlikely. Ward stated when asked about fighting Sergey Kovalev, “that’s not even a pay-per-view fight”. The Golovkin fight brings the same issue. The money isn’t there for it to be worth either fighter taking that sort of risk.

In conclusion, Golovkin is not ducking Ward because the fight can’t be made and isn’t a big crossover fight. He should stay at 160 and fight Murray, then target the Matt Korobov-Andy Lee winner for the WBO title and hope his brand will be big enough to get a fight with the Cotto-Canelo winner.

If a big money fight with Froch or Chavez becomes available then he should take it, but until he should keep building his name by fighting as often as possible against the best names available. Meanwhile, Ward can keep losing court battles and keep trying to stay relevant by getting the HBO crew to talk about him during Golovkin fights.



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