By Chris Williams: Former super middleweight champion Andre Ward says he’s given up on the idea of ever fighting IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Ward feels that now that he’s at light heavyweight, the fight with Golovkin won’t ever happen.
Ward says Golovkin and his team don’t want the fight with him, and he sees them as just talkers and not being serious about eventually fighting him. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez said this past week that Golovkin could fight Ward years from now when/if Golovkin moves up to 175.
Sanchez thinks Golovkin could wind up fighting at 175 in four or five years as he gets older. However, Sanchez doesn’t know that for a fact, and the chances are that Golovkin won’t put on weight like normal fighters do. He’s from the Eastern European background and a lot of those fighters don’t put on a lot of weight as they get older. They stay lean throughout their careers much of the time.
“It’s clear to me that Golovkin doesn’t want to fight,” said Ward to theshadowleague.com “Well, we call him ‘Little G.’ Little G doesn’t want to fight and they do a good game, they do a lot of talking from his side and that’s cool but the way I was raised in the boxing game and the way I came up, it’s very simple.”
I think Ward is right. If “Little G,” as he calls him, really wanted to fight him, he would have taken the fight with him by now instead of wasting time fighting little known fighters like Dominic Wade, Martin Murray, and Willie Monroe Jr. Golovkin could have fought Ward by now and picked up a big payday on HBO PPV. It would have been a fight that would make big time money if Golovkin had taken it by now.
“I’m too big and even if he came up to Super Middleweight, I just don’t see that fight happening,” said Ward. “And its unfortunate because that would have been a tremendous fight for the fans and everyone wanted to see it. But he didn’t want to step up and take the fight.”
Golovkin is trying to get a unification fight WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez next for September 17, but that fight remains much in doubt because Canelo has better options available to him in rematch against Miguel Cotto, and a potential fight against Manny Pacquiao if he decides to come back.
Canelo will likely tactically bow out of the Golovkin fight with an excuse. In other words, Canelo will be doing just what Golovkin did to go in another direction to fight someone else rather than taking the Ward fight. Canelo shouldn’t be vilified if he chooses not to fight Golovkin, because Golovkin did the same thing by not fighting Ward. What
I like about Ward is he doesn’t duck anybody. He fought Card Froch Mikkel Kessler when the two of them were considered to be the best fighters in the 168lb division. Ward has now moved up to light heavyweight to take on the guy that is seen as the best fighter in the division in Sergey Kovalev.
If Ward wins that fight, then you can bet that he’ll be targeting WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson after that, because that’s the type of fighter Ward is. He’s fearless and wants to create a real legacy, not a paper legacy based on ducking and diving to avoid the best fighters. In that respect, Ward is an old school fighter out of the Sugar Ray Robinson and Jack Dempsey mold.
“If two guys want to fight, you go through the process to make the fight, you call my people, I call your people,” said Ward. “We did that. We made him an offer to fight he refused to fight. He turned it down and I wish him nothing but the best. But me going up in weight changes the landscape. It’s just not going to work.”
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez is now making what sounds like excuses about why a Golovkin-Ward fight can’t happen by saying Ward has moved up to light heavyweight, as if that would prevent the two fighters from facing each other at 168 or 172. Golovkin could easily make those weights if he wanted to.
“Andre Ward has moved on to 175,” said Sanchez to Hoop Jab. “Who knows what Golovkin’s future will be four to five years from now? Unfortunately, the fight didn’t happen for a lot of different reasons. Andre had some reasons. We had some reasons, but if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. When it gets to the point where Golovkin moves up to 175, that’d be a great fight. I don’t think Andre’s going to move up to cruiserweight or heavyweight. Golovkin’s top weight will probably be 175. I’m sure Andre will be there for a while. He’s still a young man. So if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,” said Sanchez.