By Allan Fox: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) says he now calls IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) “Little G” rather than his other nickname “Triple G” due to Golovkin’s management turning down a fight against him.
Ward say that his people attempted to get a fight against the 33-year-old Kazakhstan star and they were turned down in just five minutes. It appears that from what Ward is saying, Golovkin or his management aren’t too thrilled at the idea of fighting Ward at this time.
It’s not all that surprising though because Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler and trainer Abel Sanchez seem to be dialed in with the opponent that Golovkin has in front of him in IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), who he’s facing next month on October 17th on HBO pay-per-view from Madison Square Garden in New York.
“It’s not Triple G no more, It’s Little G,” said Ward to Fighthub. “Little G turned down an official fight with us, I don’t know, about a month ago – I just don’t talk about this stuff a lot…The reality is, for all the talk, for all the websites that the trainer and promoter went off on, for all the radio, for all that they said, the proof is in the pudding. I have an email right now that shows that we gave him what he wanted, we’ll give you 50/50, these are the terms, these are the conditions, and the promoter turned it down and said ‘maybe in 2017.’ So from now on he’s Little G. They turned it down in 5 minutes.” Ward said.
Golovkin and Loeffler are interested in fighting the winner of the November 21st fight between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. That’s not going to be easy for Golovkin to beat the winner of that fight, and he might just lose. Further, there’s no telling really if Golovkin can even get that fight.
If he doesn’t, get the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight, then his only chance of getting a good money fight is if he can lure the winner of the Andy Lee vs. Billy Joe Saunders fight to face him. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Golovkin could very well be right back where he started from in having to face the mostly obscure contenders that the World Boxing Association has ranked in their top 15. Golovkin will find himself facing the likes of Tureano Johnson before the end of 2015 rather than the Cotto vs. Canelo or Lee vs. Saunders winners.
From Ward’s perspective, you can understand why he’s not happy with Golovkin. There’s been so much talk that has come from Golovkin’s team, and Ward wants to see them put up or shut up. Ward has called them out, and according to him, he’s been told that they’re not interested.
Ward isn’t the type of fighter who backs down from big name opponents when they challenge him, so it’s something that is alien to him to not take a fight. But he’s now moved on and is waiting to find out from his management the name of his next opponent, which will likely be taking place in the light heavyweight division.
Golovkin will be staying at middleweight until he unifies all the titles in that weight class. It could take a while for him to get a chance to win the WBO belt. He’ll get the WBC title automatically if the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight chooses not to face him.
They’ll be stripped of the title by the World Boxing Council, and that’ll give Golovkin three of the four middleweights titles in the division. The only title that won’t be in his possession is the WBO strap held by Andy Lee.
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