By Allan Fox: Undefeated challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) is seen by many fans to be the sacrificial lamb for Saturday’s fight against IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) for their fight on HBO. Wade doesn’t see it that way. He thinks the fight is going to be a war and he’s giving himself a great chance of winning the fight against the older fighter Golovkin.
Wade, 25, and Golovkin met for their final press conference on Thursday afternoon for their fight at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Both guys looked good. Neither fighter appears to be struggling with the weight as of now, which is a good thing because there’s not enough time for either of them to drop a lot of weight before Friday’s weigh-in.
Golovkin has to make weight because if he fails to make weight, he’ll lose his titles and wind up back at square one without any belts. Golovkin wants to try and capture all four of the middleweight titles. It would take him too long to try and recapture the IBF and WBA titles if he misses the weight tomorrow.
“I’m not much of a big talker. I’m definitely ready for it. It’s going to be a fight. It’s going to be a war,” said Wade in today’s final press conference.
If the fight really does turn out to be a war, it’ll be a lot better fight than we saw from Golovkin from his last bout against former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux last October. That fight was a real disappointment due to Golovkin deciding to mostly jab, and Lemieux not being willing to take any chances in the fight.
Lemieux only had one chance of winning and that was if he pressed the issue to try and go to war with Golovkin. Instead of doing that, Lemieux stayed on the outside and ate jabs all night long until Golovkin took him out in the 8th round. Wade has the punching power, size and the youth to give Golovkin problems in this fight. The only question is will Wade be willing to mix it up in the way that he needs to for him to get the victory.
“We’re looking for a tough fight,” said Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez.
It’s doubtful that Sanchez is being on the level about him thinking that Wade will be a tough fight. Most boxing fans believe that Wade is completely out of his element due to his lack of experience. But we’re going to find out on Saturday night if he does have the talent or not to give the 34-year-old Golovkin enough problems to make it a tough fight like Sanchez thinks it’ll be. Sometimes fighters get old over night when they get into their mid-30s like Golovkin. Will that happen to him on Saturday night. I’m not sure. Wade will need to fight hard enough for fans to find out of Golovkin has slipped a notch.
The winner of the Golovkin-Wade fight will be looking to go after the WBC title next against the winner of Amir Khan vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.