Should Golovkin appease Andre Ward by fighting him at 168?

By Boxing News - 07/22/2015 - Comments

golovkin466677(Photo credit/Will Hart, K2 Promotions) By Allan Fox: It’s increasingly becoming more clear that if WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) wants a fight against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (30-0, 15 KOs), Golovkin is going to have to face Ward at the full 168 pound weight for the super middleweight division.

According to Steve Kim, Ward won’t be meeting Golovkin halfway in a 50-50 scenario in a catch-weight at 164lbs in order to make it easier for the smaller Golovkin. The question now is whether Golovkin – and his promoter Tom Loeffler – are willing to let Ward be the A-side in the negotiations by giving him what he wants in the negotiations when it comes to weight.

“He [Ward] wants 50-50. He wants the fight with me,” Golovkin said to ESPN’s SportNation. “Absolutely, I’m ready. Right now, he’s not boxed for two years. His [Ward] situation is not perfect for the fight. I think my situation is much better. Get in a fight, 50-50 money [and] 50-50 weight.”

By Golovkin saying 50-50 weight, he’s saying he wants a catch-weight at 164. But that doesn’t appear to be something that Ward is going to give him. Ward hasn’t fought at 166 for nine years, and it likely would be a real labor for him to get down to 164. Ward’s last fight was at 172 against Paul Smith, and that gives you a pretty clear idea the direction Ward’s weight is going in. But it’s no good for Golovkin to have to go all the way up to 168 to fight a much bigger guy.

It’s especially not good for Golovkin because he would need to potentially drop all the way down to 155 for him to fight the Cotto-Canelo winner, because neither of those guys have shown much interest in fighting at the full weight for the middleweight division at 160. Canelo should be fighting at 160, given that he’s rehydrating to 175. But if Canelo fought at 160, he would have a hard time getting junior middleweights to fight him at that weight, and might then be forced to fight middleweights all the time, and those guys rehydrate to 175 just like he does.

The better question is why should Golovkin and Loeffler let Ward be the A-side if Golovkin is the one that is bringing in the huge ratings, and clearly on his way up to the top at this point? It would like the more logical thing for Golovkin and Loeffler to do is draw a line in the sand by offering Ward the fight at 160 pounds with a purse split of 75-25.

There should be no guilt about Golovkin openly saying what his conditions are for the fight. After all, he’s a fighter who is becoming more and more popular with each and every fight. Golovkin really doesn’t even need guys like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Miguel Cotto to fight him for him to eventually become a huge star. It would obviously speed things up if those guys fought him, but he doesn’t need to face them for him to become a big star.

It makes more sense for Golovkin and Loeffler to give Ward a take it or leave it offer, because Golovkin has a ton of options in the future whether he gets Canelo or Cotto to fight him or not. At some point Golovkin’s popularity will get so big that the top fighters will naturally be looking to get a fight against him without him having to bend over backwards by giving away all these weight or money concessions just in order to get the fight.



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