(Photo Credit/Michael Sterling Eaton, Neo Nostalgia) By Jim Dower: Trainer Abel Sanchez says that IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) is ready for his title defense this month in nine days from now against unbeaten Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) on April 23 on HBO Championship Boxing from the Forum in Inglewood, California.
Wade, 25, is seen as a real challenge for the recently turned 34-year-old Golovkin due to his hunger, punching power and his youth. Wade hasn’t learned how to lose yet, and he’s going to be coming into the fight with the confidence from his past 18 victories.
Sanchez says they’re not overlooking Wade because they know he’s going to be coming into the fight highly motivated and looking to catch Golovkin off guard to pull off an upset. Golovkin and his management team have their sights set for the bigger money fights against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Billy Joe Saunders and Gilberto Ramirez.
Those are the three targets for Golovkin’s next fight if he can get past Wade. If Golovkin loses this fight to the American Wade, then he can forget about fighting Canelo, Saunders or Ramirez, because he’ll need to push the reload button on his career to work his way back to where he is right now, starting with rematch against Wade if he can get it.
“Dominic presents a challenge because he’s young, hungry and undefeated,” said Sanchez. “They have to adapt to us, we’re not going to adapt to them. Gennady understands that this fight is for the IBF mandatory, if we don’t fight this guy we lose the title.”
Wade will definitely be giving it all he’s got in this fight. He’s likely found out from watching Golovkin’s past fights that movement and playing it safe doesn’t work against him. Golovkin is too good at cutting off the ring to chop down his opponents when they use movement. If Wade tries to just survive, he’s going to get blasted out. This is why we’re very likely going to see Wade coming straight at Golovkin on April 23 hoping to beat the Kazakhstan fighter at his own game.
Willie Monroe had success at times by standing in the pocket and trading shots with Golovkin last year in May 2015. What Monroe did was push a very fast pace, and this seemed to have Golovkin winded and breathing very hard by the 4th round. Monroe came unglued in the 5th round, however, after getting hit with a shopping right hand to the head that got him in trouble.
In the 6th round, Golovkin continued to hurt Monroe until knocking him down in that round. Monroe then quit after he got back to his feet. If Monroe had a better chin then he did, he might have been able to give Golovkin more problems with his fast pace style of fighting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52M0GkdfC14
Wade has the youth and conditioning to do what Monroe did in pushing Golovkin to fight every second of every round. Wade hasn’t been hurt before in his seven-year pro career. The one exception was in January 2014, when Wade was dropped in the 1st round by the hard-hitting journeyman Dashon Johnson. Wade got up off the deck and went on to win an easy 8-round unanimous decision over Johnson.
The fight showed that Wade, like any other fighter in the sport, can be vulnerable if he’s hit just right by a perfectly timed power shot. Dashon Johnson recently gave the highly hyped super middleweight contender Jesse Hart all he could handle last March in knocking him down in the 10th round and losing a close 10 round decision. That was a fight that Johnson could have very easily won if he’d been able to do just a bit more.
Wade has nothing to lose in this fight, so you can expect him to right after Golovkin looking to try and KO him as fast as possible. Wade is the type of fighter who will give it all he’s got.
“We have some tickets left but I would encourage fans to purchase them quickly for the next ‘Big Drama Show,” said Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler.
The co-feature fight will be a good one between WBC flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, 44-0 (38KO’s) facing McWilliams Arroyo, 16-2 (14 KO’s). This fight is the perfect fight to get the boxing fans ready for the main event between Golovkin and the hard hitting Wade. Gonzalez should be able to chop Arroyo down without any problems.
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