Dominic Wade: I will be the one that fights Canelo, not Golovkin

By Boxing News - 04/21/2016 - Comments

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By Jeff Aranow: Challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) sees a lot of holes in IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s game that he plans on taking advantage of this Saturday night. Wade sees nothing special in Golovkin that he feels he can’t beat, and he plans wrecking Golovkin’s dreams of fighting WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez later this year for his title.

In fact, Wade feels he’s going to be the one that ends up fighting Canelo for the WBC title instead of Golovkin. If Wade gets his way and beats Golovkin to get to the Canelo fight, he’ll very likely be setting himself up for life with a huge payday.

There’s a lot of money to be made by Wade if he can beat Golovkin to get to the Canelo fight. That’s the kind of money that Wade won’t be seeing fighting the other middleweights in the division. Canelo is the top of the division when it comes to paydays.

The 25-year-old Wade is a huge underdog in this fight against Golovkin, but he doesn’t care. Wade thinks the fans, media and the oddsmakers haven’t studied his fights well enough to know how good he is and what he’ll be bringing to the table this Saturday night on HBO.

“I just don’t care what people are talking about Golovkin’s future. I’ll be spoiling those plans,” said Wade to skysports.com. “I see flaws in his game that I can take advantage of. He’s very strong but also very basic in some ways.”

Golovkin, 34, definitely has a lot of flaws on defense. He’s so committed to scoring knockouts in his fights that he leaves himself open quite often. Golovkin can fight defensively when he wants to, as we saw in his last fight against David Lemieux. But if you wait Golovkin out until he starts looking to unload his big power shots, you can catch him with big shots.

Golovkin didn’t do much against Lemieux last October until the 8th round. At that point, Golovkin reverted to form and started throwing bombs. Unfortunately for Lemieux, he didn’t have the defense to block the hard body shots that Lemieux was nailing him with, and the fight was subsequently stopped with Lemieux still on his feet fighting back more or less.

“The given fact that most people underestimate me, extra motivates me towards victory this Saturday. I will be the one who fights Canelo,” said Wade. “Nobody thinks I can win. There aren’t that many people out there, aware of just what I can do inside the ring.”

Wade hasn’t said what his game plan will be for him to beat Golovkin. He doesn’t plan on running from him, because that’s a style that haven proven to be ineffective against the Kazakhstan fighter. Golovkin is too good at cutting off the ring, and Wade hasn’t shown the ability to move around a lot. Wade is slightly slow on his feet for a young fighter, and it’s not likely that he’s going to bother trying to use movement to win.

The styles that have given Golovkin the most trouble during his career were that of Kassim Ouma and Willie Monroe Jr. Those fighters threw a lot of punches and forced Golovkin to fight at a faster pace than he’s comfortable with. Ouma had Golovkin looked badly bruised and tired by the time that Golovkin finally scored a 10th round knockout. That was by no means an easy fight for Triple G. Even the Monroe fight proved to be difficult for Golovkin, because he looked ragged at times when Monroe was throwing a lot of punches.

“I’m ready for this, people ask if I’m nervous, not at all. I’ve been a fighter all my life, always wanted to be a world champion. When this opportunity came up I was so excited I could have run 30 miles,” said Wade. “I know how good Gennady is but I’ll be ready on April 23 to be victorious and show the world who the best middleweight is.”

Wade feels that any fight involves two guys throwing punches at each other, and it doesn’t matter how hyped one guy is. He has a chance to lose no matter who he is if he gets hit enough times. Wade has the kind of power that can stop Golovkin if he gets hit in the right spot, and if he gets hit enough.

Golovkin’s face swells up quickly when he’s hit. Monroe had Golovkin’s eyes looking bruised after just four rounds. Gabriel Rosado did the same thing in his fight against him. Ouma had Golovkin’s entire facing looking lumpy in their ward in 2011. That was a really grueling fight for Golovkin and he was fortunate that he was able to get a stoppage.

If Ouma had been able to survive a little while longer, he might have scored a knockout himself. Wade has obviously seen the Golovkin vs. Ouma fight and he knows what he needs to do in order to beat him. You’ve got to throw a lot of punches and push the fight at a fast enough pace to wear Golovkin down. He’s an aging fighter, and aging fighters can be worn down by younger guys like the 25-year-old Wade.

“I ain’t scared of no man. He does the same things that I do,” said Wade. “I’ll be ready for it. You can’t really judge what he does against everybody else compared to me. I’ve been working all my life probably like he’s been working all his life. I’m ready for him. Of course, there’s a lot of pressure because he is a world champion and this is his hometown. I’m coming to take what was his right now. They’re going to learn that I’m a dog and I come to work.”

It helps that Wade isn’t afraid of Golovkin. Now all he needs to do is take the fight to Golovkin the entire 12 rounds in the same way Wade would push the fight against a lesser known fighter. Golovkin is there to be hit, so all Wade needs to do is make sure he throws a lot of shots to try and get him out of there.