Golovkin: I need to get back in the ring for my fans

By Boxing News - 02/09/2016 - Comments

Boxing: Golovkin vs LemieuxBy Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) says he needs to get back in action for his fans. GGG is scheduled to fight #3 IBF mandatory challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) in two months from now on April 23 at the Forum, in Inglewood, California.

The fight against the 25-year-old serves two purposes. First of all, it’s a mandatory defense of Golovkin’s IBF belt that he needs to take care of if he wants to continue to be the International Boxing Federation 160lb champion.

Secondly, the Wade fight works as an interim fight to get Golovkin and the fans ready for a potentially much bigger fight later this year against WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in September. Canelo has his own interim fight he’s getting out of the way against welterweight Amir Khan on May 7 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

At least Golovkin is fighting a middleweight in Wade. Canelo will be dipping down into the 147lb division to fight Khan. However, it’s been part of Canelo’s career in fighting guys in weight divisions lower than his own, so it’s not unexpected that he chose to fight an opponent two divisions below his own. Canelo did the same thing against Josesito Lopez in 2012. At the time, Lopez was fighting in the 140lb division, and he bulked up to fight Canelo at 154. It was an easy fight for Canelo due to his size and power advantage.

The Golovkin-Wade fight will be a showcase fight despite it being a mandatory defense. The IBF probably shouldn’t have ranked Wade so highly because he looked awful in his last fight against 42-year-old Sam Soliman last year in beating him by a questionable 10 round split decision. Wade looked like an inexperienced fighter that didn’t deserve the decision in my view. It’s fortunate that the Al Haymon-managed Wade got the victory in that fight, but I don’t think it’s going to help him other than getting him a payday against Golovkin.

Wade doesn’t look like he’s ready to be fighting guys in Golovkin’s class right now, and I don’t think Wade is even ready to fight guys like Tureano Johnson, Chris Eubank Jr., David Lemieux, Hassan N’Dam, Ryota Murata, Eamonn O’Kane, Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Arif Magomedov.

Wade is too inexperienced and has too many flaws in his game to be fighting a guy like Golovkin. If the IBF wanted to do Wade a favor, they would make him fight Soliman again and prove that he’s the better fighter because I gave Wade a failing grade in their fight last year. Soliman was really given the shaft in that fight.

Golovkin might need to carry Wade if he wants the fight to go six rounds. I don’t think Wade is good enough to last more than three rounds. He’s a step down from Golovkin’s last opponent Lemieux, and he’s not going to have anything to keep Golovkin off of him in terms of punching power.



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