By Dan Ambrose: Bernard Hopkins says he wants IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to move up to the 175lb division to take on the winner of the November 19 fight between IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) and Andre “SOG” Ward (30-0, 15 Kos).
Hopkins also says that if he had fought Golovkin, he would have beaten him. The fact that Hopkins is in his 50s now suggests that he’s never going to get the chance to fight Golovkin, so it’s not even worth it to speculate.
This isn’t the first time that Hopkins has suggested that Golovkin move up in weight to fight the likes of Ward. Hopkins has been interested in having Golovkin move up in weight for a while. It doesn’t quite make sense though, because Hopkins is with Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Mexican star Saul Canelo Alvarez.
Hopkins said to Omnisport.peroformgroup.com:
“I would like for Triple G to make a statement and fight the winner of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovlev – that’s what I what I want to see. I Triple G and Canelo don’t fight, we’ve got the next thing for you; Triple G can get into a catch-weight situation, or even do what Bernard Hopkins did, jump up to weights and fight the winner of Kovalev and Andre Ward.”
If anyone should be moving up to light heavyweight, it should be Canelo Alvarez. He’s the one that is rumored to be rehydrating into the 180s. Golovkin comes into his fights right at 170. Amir Khan said that Canelo rehydrated to 187 for his fight against him last May.
If Canelo is weighing 187 for his fights, then it shouldn’t be a problem for him to move up to light heavyweight to fight the winner of the Kovalev vs. Ward fight. Canelo would be within five to ten pounds of those two if he came into the fight at 187 after making weight. That makes more sense to me than asking Golovkin to come up in weight to fight Ward or Kovalev. It would be a huge weight disadvantage for Golovkin to take the fight against either of those guys.
GGG is a great fighter, but I don’t think he’s going to be able to handle fighting Kovalev or Ward, especially with them outweighing him by so much. Those guys aren’t just heavier than Golovkin. They’re also close to two inches taller with a longer reach. It would be a size disadvantage for Golovkin against the Kovalev-War winner.
Golovkin’s last opponent Kell Brook moved up two weight divisions to fight Golovkin after moving up from welterweight. The difference here is that Brook is a middleweight in size. He’s just been melting down all this time to fight at welterweight in order to have a size advantage over his opponents. Brook has been coming down from the 170s to make weight at 147 against welterweights. Golovkin hasn’t doesn’t walk around in the 190s in between fights.
If Golovkin moves up in weight to 175, it pushes him further away from a fight against Canelo rather than towards him. If anything, Hopkins should want Golovkin to stay at middleweight so that he can fight Canelo. I Golovkin moves up to 175, it’s going to be all the harder for him to come back down to 160, because he will have had to put on a lot of weight to compete against Ward or Kovalev. Those guys probably rehydrate into the 190s for their fights at 175. Golovkin weighs around 170 for his fights at middleweight. If Golovkin moves up to the light heavyweight division, he would need to put weight on for him to have a chance at beating the Kovalev vs. Ward winner.
Hopkins should be pushing for the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight rather than suggesting that Golovkin move up to light heavyweight. That doesn’t make sense to recommend that Golovkin move up two weight classes. The only way it makes sense is if a fight between Golovkin and Canelo WON’T be taking place. That’s the fight that Hopkins should be trying to sell, not a fight between Golovkin and the winner of the Ward-Kovalev fight. I wonder if Hopkins is thinking these things through. For the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight to be a huge affair, Golovkin needs to be unbeaten and looking as good as possible. As soon as Golovkin loses, it’s going to drive down interest in a fight between him and Canelo.
I don’t know who the winner of the Kovalev-Ward fight will be facing next, but it sure won’t be Golovkin. Hopkins already fought Kovalev two years ago in 2014, and he was easily beaten by a lopsided 12 round decision. Artur Beterbiev is ranked #2 by the IBF. You would think that Beterbiev would be next in line for a title shot against the winner of the Kovalev-Ward fight. I wouldn’t mind seeing Beterbiev fight either of those guys, because he already beat Kovalev twice in the amateur ranks. It would be nice to see if he could do the same thing in the pro ranks. If so, then it would be huge news for the boxing fans to see Kovalev beaten for the first time.