By Diarmuid Sherry: Anyone who has mattered at 168lbs, Andre Ward has beaten. Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Sakio Bika and recent challenger Edwin Rodriguez were all outfoxed by the superior Ward. Former Light Heavyweight Champion, Chad Dawson found that dropping the 7lbs to fight at Super Middleweight too difficult to cope with, and lost to a rare Ward knockout.
Ward was left with a choice, either stay at Super Middleweight and churn over any remaining challengers, or move a division north, and chase the big names in Light Heavyweight. He chose the former.
His talent is unquestionably deserving of this, however his entertainment value, his selling prowess, and his ability to excite leaves a lot to be desired. Furthermore, the inactivity issue means that Ward is easily forgotten by fans and media alike, and makes it more difficult to build the momentum to gain the respect he feels he deserves, that other fighters like Gennady Golovkin has.
There are big fights at Light Heavyweight for Ward. That is an exciting division, and even though Ward has dismissed a contest with Bernard Hopkins due to their close friendship, there still are and were hopeful opportunities against the likes of Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson and Jean Pascal, of which Ward has shown no interest. Instead Ward has been calling out that smaller men like Golovkin and Chavez Jr, should move up to fight him.
Kazakh sensation Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin on the other hand is bulldozing his way through his career in the exact opposite way to Ward. The Golovkin roadshow has been through the Amercian West and East coast, as well as in Europe and has sold wherever he has been. Golovkin fights top contender, or lesser contenders regularly, exciting punters with his entertaining boxing ability and blistering knockouts.
Although Golovkin has said he would fight at 168lbs, and a showdown with Juilo Cesar Chavez at that weight failed to happen because of Chavez’s rejection, moving up to 175lbs would be foolish of Golovkin to do presently in his career. Why? Despite many people thinking he is the best, he has yet to prove it. Miguel Cotto is the man because he beat the previous man, Sergio Martinez. And although Golovkin has violently devastated decent contenders like Marco Rubio, Daniel Geale and Matthew Macklin, ‘GGG’ still has huge career and financial opportunities against Miguel Cotto and maybe Sergio Martinez and Canelo Alvarez in line for late 2015.
Of course, these hypothetical showdowns, are based on the assumptions that Golovkin beats Martin Murray in February, and the winner of the likely Cotto/Canelo showdown in May is willing to face Golovkin at all. Sergio Martinez may never get in the ring again, but still the point stands that Golovkin would be wise to stay at 160lb at present.
Andre Ward on the other hand, should get back in the ring as quickly as possible, and prove why he is worth what he believes he is. Ward is not a young fighter no more, he is 30 years old, and very quickly, his exceedingly promising talent and career is wasting away. Whether he fights lesser contenders at Super Middleweight, or moves up to Light Heavyweight, Ward has to do something, but first and foremost he should forget any contest with Gennady Golovkin, because GGG doesn’t need him.
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