By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez says he doesn’t know precisely what unbeaten IBF mandatory challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) will be bringing to the table for their fight next month on April 23. However, if Wade comes to fight hard, then Sanchez believes the fight will be over by the 4th round at the latest.
Sanchez know what to expect from the 25-year-old Wade, because all he has to go on is his recent fight against 42-year-old Sam Soliman last June. Sanchez thinks Wade didn’t have the motivation in that fight as he does now with him fighting for multiple world titles against Golovkin.
Sanchez is expecting Wade to be a good challenge for Gennady when the two of them face each other on HBO Championship Boxing from the Forum in Inglewood, California.
“If Dominic comes to fight, we may have three or four explosive rounds,” says Sanchez to Thaboxingvoice. “Gennady’s a hard puncher, but we don’t know anything about Wade. Gennady has never been hit with a big shot. We don’t know how he’s going to react. The [Sam] Soliman isn’t a barometer. When guys get a title fight, they train harder. It’s difficult to judge him by the Soliman fight. The clips that you do see is a guy that doesn’t have the incentive that he does now,” said Sanchez.
It sounds like Sanchez is building up Wade in order to increase interest in the fight. If you look at Wade’s fight against Soliman, he didn’t look unmotivated. Wade looked like he had met his match. He was facing a guy that was better than him, even at the age of 42. Soliman was arguably robbed in that fight. Wade won by a 10 round split decision, but the fans at the venue booed when the scores were announced.
The Wade-Soliman fight took place at the Little Creek Casino Resort, in Shelton, Washington, USA. Wade had no reason to be unmotivated, because he was facing his stiffest challenge of his career. It just looked like he was facing a better fighter in Soliman, and he wound up getting his head boxed off. I had Soliman winning the fight by seven rounds.
I thought it was some of the worst scoring of a fight I’ve seen in a long time. I think the International Boxing Federation would have been better off ranking some of the other contenders above Wade instead of below him. I think these contenders are far better fighters than Wade: Avtandil Kurtsidze, Arif Magomedov, Sam Soliman and Hassan N’Dam. The IBF has Wade ranked above all those guys.
“Gennady only had 17 fights when he fought for a title,” said Sanchez. “Maybe Dominic is another Golovkin. We don’t know that. He [Wade] had a good amateur career. He’s got good skills, a great jab, nice hand speed. Will it be different when Gennady hits him? Maybe so. Until then, I have to assume that this is the best middleweight available for Gennady to fight,” said Sanchez.
You know that Sanchez is building Wade up when you hear him saying that maybe Wade is another Golovkin. It sounds like Sanchez wants to increase interest in the Golovkin-Wade fight. I don’t think he’s going to be able to do it by hyping Wade. Too many boxing fans see this fight as a mismatch, and rightfully so.
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