By Dan Ambrose: The long awaited match between IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) and Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) is only 16 days away for their fight on April 23 on HBO from the Forum in Inglewood, California.
This is one of those rare fights where both guys are going into the match undefeated. Wade, 25, is a lot younger than the 34-year-old Golovkin, but his youth isn’t necessarily a good thing in this case.
Golovkin is fighting like someone six years younger than his chronological age, so Wade is going to have to try and beat him on technical skills rather than on being the younger or more active fighter. Wade doesn’t have any real experience to speak of going into this fight. His only talented opponent of his seven-year pro career was 42-year-old Sam Soliman, who Wade beat by a questionable 10 round split decision in 2015. That was not Wade’s finest hour, as he was dominated from start to finish and was lucky to get out of the fight with a win because he appeared to lose the fight handily in my view.
Golovkin needs to get Wade out of the wayu so that he can fight for the World Boxing Council title later this year, possibly against the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan fight. Canelo is seen as the one that will win that fight against Khan, but if he wins that fight, then it might be bad for Golovkin because Canelo could dig in his heals by insisting that he agree to his 155lb catch-weight requirements or else no fight.
Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez have already said that they won’t negotiate with Canelo on a catch-weight for him. They will only fight him at 160. That could result in Canelo either vacating or waiting until the WBC strips him of the strap. We don’t even know if the WBC will do that. They could vote in block to let Canelo use catch-weights for all of his fights. That would Golovkin in a tough position where he’d need to agree to the handicap for Canelo if he wants to fight for the WBC 160lb strap.
Wade can act as the spoiler in this fight by potentially beating Golovkin to prevent him from moving forward with his career to fight Canelo of WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. Those are the fights that Golovkin badly wants. If he gets derailed by Wade, it would be a real blow to his career because he would then need to waste valuable time in taking his career backwards to try and avenge the loss.
Golovkin would be in a bad position to get a fight against Canelo or Saunders at that point. He would still likely fight them in the future, but it wouldn’t be right away. Canelo would have an excuse not to fight Golovkin. The loss for Golovkin against Wade would let Canelo skate away and fight other fighters like welterweight Manny Pacquiao or Tim Bradley.
Wade is obviously going to be swinging for the fences on April 23 because he only has one chance of beating Golovkin and that’s by knocking him out.
Comments are closed.