By Allan Fox: Andre Ward could soon be facing middleweight Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in the near future if Ward beats IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in their fight on November 19 on HBO pay-per-view. That’s what ESPN First Take commentator Max Kellerman sees happening. He believes that we’re going to see Golovkin step up and face Ward if he defeats Kovalev. However, for that fight to happen, Golovkin would need to likely move up two entire divisions to fight Ward at 175, because the 32-year-old former super middleweight champion says it’s too hard for him to fight at super middleweight at this point his career.
(Photo credit: World Boxing Council)
“Eventually that’s the fight [Ward vs. Golovkin] you’re going to get if Ward wins that fight,” said Kellerman on ESPN’s First Take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO6mB0W3I3s
I hope Kellerman isn’t holding his breath waiting for the Golovkin vs. Ward fight to take place, because I’m not sure that it will. If it does, it could be at a later date after Golovkin has exhausted all the potential fights for him at middleweight and super middleweight. Golovkin can probably make a lot more money fighting British fighters like Chris Eubank Jr., Callum Smith, and James DeGale than he could fighting Ward. Golovkin can also make good money fighting WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez.
I expect the Ward vs. Kovalev fight to be a huge flop on HBO pay-per-view, because I don’t see either of them being popular enough for their fight to be a pay-per-view worthy fight on HBO. Also, Kovalev and Ward won’t be able to sell the fight properly to the boxing public. Just watching the two being interviewed after Ward’s fight last Saturday night, it was clear that they’ve got an uphill climb in selling their fight on HBO. Ward wouldn’t make eye contact, had little to say, and Kovalev could barely speak English.
I don’t see the Kovalev vs. Ward fight selling at all, and that in turn would hurt Ward’s chances of getting a fight against Golovkin. Even if Ward beats Kovalev, if the fight does poor PPV numbers on HBO, then there would be no reason for Golovkin to move up to fight Ward at light heavyweight. If all Golovkin is going to get is a small purse in fighting Ward, then it’s not worth it. Ward’s opponent Alexander Brand from last Saturday night received a purse of $30,000 compared to Ward’s $850,000. That suggests that Ward isn’t a big money fighter and Golovkin would be better off sticking with fighting British fighters in big money fights rather than taking a pay cut in having to move all the way up to light heavyweight to fight a bigger fighter in Ward. It would be a potential stinker in terms of ratings if Golovkin chooses to fight Ward, because it would be hard sell.
Golovkin, 5’10 ½”, would be giving away a tremendous amount of size to Ward. We saw how much bigger Ward looked last Saturday night over his 5’10 ½” opponent Alexander Brand (25-2, 19 KOs) in their fight on HBO Boxing. Brand is the same exact size as Golovkin is, maybe a little heavier. Both guys are the same height. Ward would have an incredible size advantage over Golovkin unless he was able to get him to agree to a rehydration limit. I can’t see Ward ever agreeing to a rehydration limit.
A more realistic fight for Ward if he beats Kovalev is for him to try and fight WBC champion Adonis Stevenson or WBA champion Juergen Braehmer. Those are the only money fights in the 175lb division once Kovalev is out of the way. If Ward does a lot of running, holding and wrestling against Kovalev to neutralize his offense, then I see this leading to Ward being frozen out by the other light heavyweights in the same way he was at super middleweight.
If Ward is going to fight like Guillermo Rigondeaux, then he could find himself without any opponents after the Kovalev fight, because I don’t see the other top fighters in the 175lb weight class electing to fight him if they know they’re going to be held all night long. Ward would need to look to get some of the cruiserweights to agree to fight him like Marco Huck, Denis Lebedev, Murat Gassiev, Oleksandr Usyk, Tony Bellew or Krzystof Glowacki. I can’t see Ward beating those guys with the exception of Bellew because they hit too hard, but that might be Ward’s fate if he makes it look ugly against Kovalev.