By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. thinks that people in boxing want to see former WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) get beaten for some reason. Mayweather doesn’t like the idea of Ward moving up to the 175lb division to take on IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Mayweather had a chance to fight Golovkin before retiring from the sport, but he chose to take the easy way out by not taking the fight and instead facing Andre Berto, which a horrible choice of an opponent. Golovkin was going to move down to 154 to face Mayweather.
Some boxing fans might see Mayweather’s comments about Golovkin and see them as jealousy because of all the praise that he’s getting for his fights. Mayweather took a lot of heat from fans for the way he boring fights against Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto before retiring. Mayweather played it safe in both of those fights, including in his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
In contrast, Golovkin has been putting on crowd-pleasing fights recently and has a 21-fight knockout streak going that dates back to 2008. I can’t remember the last time Mayweather knocked out anyone legitimately. I don’t count his knockout win over Victor Ortiz in 2011, because that was a cheap shot knockout.
Mayweather thinks Ward should stay at super middleweight and instead face the highly respected IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin if he can get him to move up to 168lb to face him. Mayweather thinks it would be an easy fight for Ward if he were to face the smaller Golovkin.
I don’t agree. I think Ward would in a world of hurt against a big puncher like Golovkin, because he’s able to punch with so much power in close, and Ward tends to do a lot of smothering on the inside. Ward throws short punches in close without a lot of power. I think Ward would be overwhelmed if he made the mistake of trying to smother Golovkin.
It would be a fight where Ward would be forced to try and stay on the outside, and that’s not going to work against a guy like Golovkin because he’ll walk Ward down and get in punching range to bomb him. Ward is kind of flat-footed and not the most mobile guy in the sport. Ward would not be able to keep Golovkin off of him, because he has slow feet and is probably slower than Martin Murray and Willie Monroe Jr, two fighters Golovkin knocked out this year.
“You know, everybody keeps talking Triple-G, so I just started taking notice probably last year,” Mayweather said to Fighthype.com. “If this guy Triple-G is so tough and so bad, you know, from what they say, then let him go up and fight Andre Ward.”
Ward has no choice but to move up to the light heavyweight division for bigger fights, because he’s being avoided by the top 168lb fighters in the division and he’s been avoided for the past four years. Golovkin isn’t going to move up in weight to fight the larger Ward, because his goal right now is to unify all the titles in the middleweight division. Thus far, Golovkin has two of the four belts at 160. He’s going to try and win the WBO middleweight title in his next fight in early 2016 if he can get a fight against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders.
Happy New Year everyone! 2015 was incredible and 2016 is gearing up to be even better! @bjsaunders_ @Canelo #allthebelts 👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼
— Gennady Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) December 31, 2015
After that, Golovkin will be looking to face WBC champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in September to win the final piece of the middleweight puzzle. Golovkin will have pretty much exhausted all the top fights in the middleweight division once he wins the WBO and WBC titles. The only fight left for Golovkin would be a bout against WBA “regular” champ Daniel Jacobs. However, I don’t think that’s a doable fight because Jacobs is managed by Al Haymon, and it’s unclear whether he’ll want to put him in against a dangerous puncher like Golovkin.
“Once again, these guys in boxing [media], not me, are rating this guy, Triple-G, super high. He’s good with a stationary target in front of him,” Mayweather said. “When he’s fighting a guy that’s straight up and down with no special effects, is he good? Absolutely! But do I think that Triple-G can beat Andre Ward? Absolutely not! Easy pickings! It’s going to be very, very, very easy for Andre Ward.”
If Ward is still around after Golovkin gets done unifying the middleweight division, then maybe he’ll give him a shot.
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