By Allan Fox: WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) ruled out the idea of him moving up to super middleweight to face the bigger Andre Ward in a fight between unbeaten champs.
Golovkin doesn’t see any point in him moving up to face Ward. Golovkin says if he does move up to the 168 pound division, he’ll be doing it to face a pay-per-view fighter like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in a PPV fight rather than Ward in a fight that would obviously not be worthy of PPV.
Golovkin has also expressed interest in facing IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch. That would be a fight that would be pay-per-view worthy as well, although it probably wouldn’t do nearly as well as a fight between Golovkin and Chavez Jr.
Golovkin told Round by Round Boxing that he’d definitely be interested in moving up to 168 for the fight right, saying “Yes, for pay-per-view fight. Chavez Jr, he’s a pay-per-view fighter. Andre Ward, he’s not a pay-per-view fighter. Maybe in the future, yeah.”
Chavez Jr hasn’t shown strong interest in fighting Golovkin unfortunately. If Golovkin can continue to grow in popularity in the future then it’s possible Chavez Jr might eventually agree to fight him. But the fight would only be worthwhile if Chavez Jr can stay busy with his career and continue to win his fights.
Chavez Jr has been out of the ring for close to a year, and the longer he stays out of the ring the more boxing fans he’s going to lose as a result of his inactivity.
If Chavez Jr loses to someone like Froch in 2015, then it won’t be worth it for Golovkin to face Chavez Jr. He was already beaten by Sergio Martinez in 2012, and he’s not faced anyone good since then. Chavez Jr has won his last two fights against Brian Vera, but he didn’t look good in their first fight, and he was fighting a middleweight that he dragged up to the super middleweight division instead of him facing someone his own size.
Andre Ward needs to start fighting again. He hasn’t fought since he beat Edwin Rodriguez in November of 2013. Ward sat out of action for all of 2014, and he still has no fights scheduled as of now. If Ward misses all of 2015, then it’s going to be very difficult for him to get the kinds of fights he’d like to take when he eventually returns to the ring.