By Dan Ambrose: Former two belt world champion Paulie Malignaggi believes that unbeaten challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) is going to need to be totally focused for the full 12 rounds of the fight next month against IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing from the Forum, in Inglewood, California.
Malignaggi sees Golovkin’s constant pressure as something that would drive a fighter crazy to be on the receiving end of that experience for a full 12 rounds, because it forces that fighter to be focused constantly without let up. There’s nonstop danger in a fight against Golovkin because he’s always there directly in front of his opponents looking to take their heads off with each shot he throws.
Malignaggi believes that Wade will improve with this fight from the fighter he was in the past. Even if things don’t work out for the 25-year-old Wade, Malignaggi still believes he’ll get better from this experience.
“He’s [Golovkin] a hard puncher, but a puncher that presents himself constantly in front of you and cuts off the ring and makes you feel that danger zone constantly,” Malignaggi said to B Boxing news. “That can drive you crazy when you’re a fighter and you’re on the receiving end of that. It’s tough to remain focused for 12 rounds, and he’s got the ability to do that. Does he [Wade] have the mental strength to do that, but at the same time you graduate to another level. Wade has all the ability in the world, and I feel he can graduate to the next level regardless of the outcome,” said Malignaggi.
Wade will need to raise his game from the way he fought last time he was in the ring in June of 2015 against 42-year-old Sam Soliman. Wade struggled with the pressure that Soliman put on him in that fight, and he appeared to lose that fight. The judges gave Wade a controversial 10 round split decision win, but he lost that fight in my book. Even if you want to agree with the two judges that gave Wade the victory, it was still a really bad performance from him. If you want to grade Wade’s performance in that fight, you can give him a D- grade, because he looked truly awful.
That was not the fight that you want to see going into a world title fight against Golovkin. After the way Wade fought against Soliman, he would need a do over or at least a few other fights before fighting someone like Golovkin. You have to wonder where Wade is mentally after the Soliman fight. That experience had to have done something to his self-confidence in a negative sense. If it were me in that fight, I wouldn’t feel good at all about getting the win, and I would be even less excited about fighting an even better fighter in Golovkin next.
The pressure that Golovkin is going to put on Wade is going to be relentless, and I don’t think Wade is going to be able to stay mentally focused long enough to survive in this fight. Even if Wade does stay focused mentally, he’s going to take some monstrous shots from Golovkin that will sap the energy out of him.
Wade has a four-inch reach advantage in this fight, but he doesn’t have the power to keep Golovkin on the outside. Wade can try and keep Golovkin off of him by jabbing, but I have a feeling that Golovkin will walk right through those jabs or duck under them to start nailing Wade at close range. Once Golovkin is on the inside, Wade’s reach advantage disappears and he then will need to be able to fight in close.
In looking at some of Wade’s recent fights against Soliman, Eddie Hunter and Nick Brinson, I noticed that Wade doesn’t have an inside game. He likes to keep the action on the outside where he can use his long reach. I don’t think Golovkin is going to be stupid and just stand on the outside so that Wade can tee off on him at will.
I think this is going to be one of Golovkin’s easier fights in recent years. Wade is a big step down from David Lemieux and Martin Murray. The International Boxing Federation needs to get with it and start ranking fighters a little bit better, because they’ve got a lot of fluff fighters ranked highly in every division.
Wade should be ranked at the bottom of the IBF’s top 15 rankings rather than near the top. The IBF is doing Wade no favors by giving him a high #3 ranking with their organization, because he’s not ready for a title fight. I don’t think he ever will be, but he’s certainly not a better fighter than many of the guys that are ranked below him like Soliman, Lemieux and Hassan N’Dam, just name a few.
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