By Allan Fox: Demetrius Andrade (24-0, 16 KOs) will be making his middleweight debut this Saturday night against Alantez Fox (23-0-1, 11 KOs) on HBO, but the guys that he’s targeting in the near future is Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Andrade, 29, is giving up on the 154lb. division to go after the bigger targets in Canelo and Golovkin.
With now under contract with HBO Boxing, he’s hoping that network will make it possible for him to get fights against the two popular guys in GGG and Canelo. First things first though, Andrade will be fighting the unbeaten 25-yearold Fox at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York. The Andrade vs. Fox card starts on HBO Boxing at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
This is going to be an excellent chance for fans to see how well the 6’1” Andrade can hang in the 160 lb. division. Andrade will need to fight a lot better than he did in his last fight against Jack Culcay earlier this year on March 11. Andrade won the fight by a 12 round split decision, and he did not look impressive in that fight. Andrade won, but it was close. The way that Andrade fought, he’s going to need to make major improvements in his game for him to be able to beat the likes of Canelo and GGG. Right now, Andrade would lose to both of them, as well as to Jermall Andrade, Sergiy Derevyancenko and Daniel Jacobs.
“I thank HBO for the opportunity so I can become the next big thing and get in the ring with Triple G and Canelo,” said Andrade via espn.com. ”It only makes sense. Who else is there to fight out there that’s going to bring in the recognition but me, an Olympian, an undefeated two-time world champion?”
Andrade needs to make some improvement before he can share the ring with the likes of Canelo and Triple G. Andrade hasn’t been fighting nearly enough in the last 2 years for him to be tangling with Canelo and Golovkin. Andrade has been dealing with inactivity, and poor opposition. Andrade has never really fought any good fighters during his career other than Vanes Martirosyan, and he barely beat that guy by a 12 round split decision. Martirosyan is light years away from Canelo and Golovkin in terms of talent.
It’s not a good sign that Andrade couldn’t get past him with flying colors. The same applies with Andrade’s fight against Culcay. To be sure, Andrade beat Culcay, but it was hardly an easy fight.
Andrade is going to need to build up his fan base by winning over some boing fans for him to pressure GGG and Canelo to fight hi, because right now he doesn’t have the cache to get either of those guys to give him a fight. It’s going to take some doing for Andrade to get those top dogs to want to fight him. I don’t know if Golovkin will stick around long enough at middleweight to fight Andrade.
Golovkin might move up to super middleweight once he’s beaten Canelo another 2 times, and beaten whoever holds the WBO middleweight title. Yeah, I realize that the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight last September was scored as a 12 round draw, but Golovkin won that fight in my he’s and the eyes of Boxing News 24.
“Now the ball is in my court,” Andrade said. “All eyes are definitely on me for this fight right here,” said Andrade.
Also on Saturday’s card on HBO Boxing are the following fights:
WBA Super World super featherweight champion Jezreel Corrales (22-1, 8 KOs) defending his strap against Alberto Machado (18-0, 15 KOs) in the main event of the card. It’s kind of hard to believe this fight is the main event, as they’re both small guys and Corrales is an unknown with the casual boxing fans. Corrales looked awful in his last fight in head-butting his way to a victory. HBO is still televising Corrales for some reason.
“It’s a great feeling to be back where I need to be, back in prime time and back on HBO, which is supporting me and backing me,” Andrade said. “My activity level is going to be back up and running. No more layoffs. I’m excited to come out, and I put on a show against Fox. Not a lot of people want to step up and fight me, so thanks to Fox for that. I appreciate that. He’s going to help make me a superstar, so thank you, Alantez Fox.”
It’ll be surprising if Andrade can become a star in the sport. He’s been wasting his prime years in the sport in the last 9 years since he turned pro in 2008. Andrade should have done so much more by this point in his career. He’s trailing the Charlo brothers, Jermell and Jermall, both of which are on their ways to becoming big names.
These are the best fighters that Andrade has fought during his long career:
• Brian Rose
• Vanes Martirosyan
• Jack Culcay
• Willie Nelson
• Dario Fabian Pucheta
• Freddy Hernandez
• Saul Duran
Those fighters aren’t nearly good enough for Andrade to have made any real mark in boxing. Now that he’s finally supposedly going to be active with his career it’ll be interesting to see if he can make the leap to the next level. Andrade is going to need to beat Fox, look great, and stay busy fighting the top guys in the division for him to get quickly ranked so he can eventually get a title shot against Canelo or Golovkin. Those guys will probably be ignoring Andrade until he starts making a name for himself.
Beating Fox isn’t going to be nearly enough for Andrade to get the big fights that he wants. If Fox had a bigger name, then possibly he could get one of the top guys to fight him. What Andrade needs most of all is a big fan base because he’s still too obscure for him to get the top talents to give him a fight.
These are the fighters that Andrade NEEDS to target for him to become a big start at 160:
• Gennady Golovkin
• Saul Canelo
• Sergiy Derevyanchenko
• Daniel Jacobs
• Ryota Murata
• David Lemieux
• Hassan Ndam
• Jermall Charlo
If things don’t work out for Andrade at middleweight, he can always move back down to 154 and pick up where he left off. The junior middleweight division is going to be losing many of the top talents very soon with fighters moving up to 160 for bigger paydays. Andrade will can probably recapture a title at 154 at no time once guys like Jermell Charlo and Jarrett Hurd clear out and move up in weight.