Dominic Wade: I ain’t scared of Golovkin

By Boxing News - 02/18/2016 - Comments

1-golovkin-wade (11)By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten #3 IBF challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) showed up on Thursday for his press conference in New York City with IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) and he made it clear that he’s not afraid of the Kazakhstan fighter despite being much younger than him. The 25-year-old Wade will be challenging Golovkin on April 23 on HBO Championship Boxing from the Forum in Inglewood, California.

Wade is a huge underdog in this fight, and one reason for that is he is fighting what many fans see as the best fighter in the 160lb division. Wade has not established himself as one of the top fighters in the middleweight division.

Wade, who is managed by the powerful manager Al Haymon, had a chance to show how good he is in his fight against 41-year-old Sam Soliman last year in July, but he struggled against him and wound up winning a controversial 10 round split decision.

“I’m just coming here to do what I got to do, you know what I’m saying? Everyone thinks I’m young, so that’s going to play a part of it. I’m definitely hungry,” Wade said via Fightnews.com.” I definitely want the titles…April 23 is going to be a show. I ain’t scared. I’m going to put in this work.”

This is Golovkin’s interim fight that he needs to get out of the way before he challenges for the WBC middleweight title later this year against the winner of the Amir Khan vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight. Wade is the IBF mandatory challenger. He’s replacing the injured #1 IBF Tureano Johnson.

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Hopefully, Wade does take the fight to Golovkin so that he doesn’t have to chase him around the ring. Soliman was able to walk Wade down all night long and get the better of him last year. Two of the judges thought that Wade done enough to deserve a decision in that fight. The crowd at ringside thought otherwise, as they loudly booed the decision and thought that Soliman had won the fight.

“I feel much better now. New year, new fight,” Golovkin said via fightnews.com. “I’m very excited, April 23, because this is boxing. I respect Dominic Wade. He’s the undefeated mandatory challenger. It’s very serious. I have new emotions. I don’t know who’ll win. I’m not God. This is boxing guys.”

It might be better for Wade’s sake if he were a little afraid of Golovkin. If he’s unafraid of him, then it’s more likely going to end early with Wade getting destroyed quickly. I rate Wade below Golovkin’s last two opponents David Lemieux and Willie Monroe Jr. in terms of talent. Those guys had elements in their game that made them slightly difficult for Golovkin. But with Wade, he’s just a tall upright fighter that is easy to hit, and who will likely be mowed down fast by Golovkin in this fight.

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Golovkin seems to realize that his fight against Wade is a mismatch, and is not being talked about much by the fans. By talking in uncertain terms about the Wade fight, Golovkin is trying to build it up and get fans excited about it. That is not going to be enough to attract interest in this fight.

This is a fight where Golovkin needs to impress the boxing public, so I would assume that he’s going to try and get Wade out of there as quickly as possible.

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Golovkin has a couple of things working against him in trying to hype the Wade fight. First off, it’s a mismatch and the fans know its mismatch. Further, Wade is not well known among both the hardcore and casual fans. You are not going to be able to attract interest in a fight if the fans are not familiar with your opponents.

The International Boxing Federation is starting to slip up with their rankings of fighters. Wade arguably does not rate to be a top five contender. He is someone that really should be ranked near the bottom of the top 15 rankings rather than at No.3. If the IBF had their rankings together, then Golovkin would be fighting a better guy like Arif Magomedov. That would be a much more competitive match-up than the mismatch between Golovkin and Wade.



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