ward By Chris Williams: Boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) points out that what made him a great fighter during his career was his willingness to take risks by moving up in weight to face dangerous opposition after starting his career out as a featherweight.

Mayweather could have stayed at that weight and played it safe his entire career, but he moved up four divisions in winning world titles at lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight.

Mayweather wants to see if the popular but very cautious IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) will take the same kinds of risks that he did by moving up in weight to face unbeaten super middleweight/light heavyweight Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs), because that’s a risk that Mayweather believes that Golovkin needs to take.

“Just because you can fight has nothing to do with selling tickets, putting asses in the seats, or becoming a pay-per-view star. It takes more than just being able to fight,” Mayweather said to Fighthype.com. “I took risks. I took chances. I’m just waiting to see if Triple G is going to go up and fight Andre Ward. I’m going to be convinced when he can go up and beat Andre Ward. Until then, I’m not convinced,” Mayweather said.

I think Golovkin would have to be physically dragged into the ring to fight Ward, and even then, I think there would have to be people posted on the ring apron to keep Golovkin from dashing out of the ring to escape Ward. In other words, I don’t think Golovkin wants any part of Ward.

I don’t believe it’s Ward’s size that has Golovkin put off, because Ward is only 1 ½” taller than Golovkin, and not that much heavier than him. I believe it’s a talent gap. Ward is just too hard to hit, too fast, and much too clever on his feet for a slow fighter like Golovkin to beat him.

What boxing fans and Ward don’t understand is that Golovkin is so interested in facing Mayweather at 154lbs, but he’s not interested in fighting Ward at 168 by moving up in weight a mere eight pounds. Mayweather doesn’t see that as a sign of someone willing to take risks with his career. Mayweather moved up in weight four separate times in winning world titles along the way, but we haven’t seen Golovkin move up in weight once.

Golovkin started his career out as a middleweight nine years ago in 2006, and he’s still a middleweight 9 years later rather than moving up to super middleweight. Mayweather isn’t asking Golovkin to move up in weight to 168 permanently. He just wants to see him move up to that weight division to fight Ward to show him and the boxing world that he’s willing to take risks with his career. Evidently, Golovkin isn’t willing to take that risk. He’d rather target fighters like Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Andy Lee than take a real risk by moving up to 168 to fight Ward or DeGale.

Getting Golovkin, 33, to take a risk by fighting Ward at super middleweight (168) may prove to be totally impossible at this point, because I don’t think the Kazakhstan fighter wants any part of Ward. Golovkin seems to be very guarded about taking on dangerous risks against guys that would have a small weight advantage over him like Ward and James DeGale. Both of those fighters are very interested in facing Golovkin, and would likely accept a fight against him any day of the week if it were offered to them. But getting Golovkin to move up in weight and face the likes of DeGale and Ward would be like pulling teeth.

It’s not the weight thing that seems to be putting Golovkin off though, because he’s expressed interest many times in wanting to fight former super middleweight champion Carl Froch. I think it’s more of a case of Ward and DeGale simply being too good for him, and I don’t believe he thinks he can beat either of them.

“Whoever is forcing Andre Ward to go up to [light] heavyweight, that’s not cool at all,” Mayweather said. “They’re trying to get him beat. From the looks of things, what’s going on in the sport of boxing, they want their superstar to be Caucasian. It’s obvious,” Mayweather said.

I agree with Mayweather that it’s just wrong that Ward has to go up to light heavyweight in order to get fights, because I think he’s been totally frozen out at 168 by the top fighters in the division and by fighters in the 160lb division. I think we’re going to see the same thing when Ward moves up to 175. As soon as he beats Sergey Kovalev, I think he’ll find himself frozen out by the rest of the top light heavyweights in the division like Juergen Braehmer, Artur Beterbiev, Eleider Alvarez, and Jean Pascal. Ward will then be put in a position where he’ll need to move up in weight to the cruiserweight division in order to scare up some fights from the top guys. The old saying is true: no one likes Goliath.