By Charles Brun: Demetrius ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade will be moving up in weight if he successfully defends his WBO middleweight title against his mandatory Liam Williams next month on April 17th on DAZN at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
Although the 32-year-old Andrade (29-0, 18 KOs) is fighting at a weight class where there are many big names in Gennadiy Golovkin and Jermall Charlo, he’s not had the chance to fight either guy.
It doesn’t look like either of those fighters will start showing interest in fighting him anytime soon, unfortunately.
The big money fights for Andrade is at 168
If Demetrius moves up to 168, he can put himself in the pool of popular fighters like Canelo Alvarez, Caleb Plant, David Benavidez, and Billy Joe Saunders.
Andrade can’t afford to look past Williams (23-2-1, 18 KOs) because the British fighter is highly motivated, knowing perhaps that this could be his only chance to fight for a world title.
Williams will likely be swinging for the fences, trying to get lucky with one of his big shots. Andrade is way out of his class in terms of talent. Liam’s only real chance of winning is if he connects with something big, which is unlikely to happen.
“After this fight, I’ll move up to 168 to fight somebody,” said Andrade to Brian Custer’s Last Stand Podcast.
“We don’t get no younger; And we can’t stay skinny/slim forever; we do put on weight, muscle, and mass. I’m a middleweight, and for me, a middleweight is 154-168, but I can never get back down to 154.”
Andrade will need to hope that he can get a fight against a top guy when he moves up to 168, but it’s not likely to happen. He can certainly use his World Boxing Organization middleweight title to rank #1 for the WBO 168-lb belt.
Demetrius made a mistake thinking that if he stayed at 160, he’d be able to fight Jermall Charlo, Gennady Golovkin, and Billy Joe Saunders.
None of those fights have happened for Andrade, and he’s used up a year of his career fighting no names. The thing is, if Andrade moves up, Canelo Alvarez, or whoever holds the WBO 168-lb belt, will likely duck him.
Andrade will get the WBO 168lb title and be right back where he started with him fighting no names and being avoided.
Demetrius mad at Saunders
“He went out there and said I’ll fight Demetrius; he didn’t want to wait on Canelo until May and pretty much just used my name for leverage to make the deal, meaning yo we want this much money or we’re going to fight Demetrius Andrade,” said Andrade about Billy Joe Saunders.
Andrade should have known that Saunders would never fight him after how failed to face him before he moved up to 168. Why would Saunders all of a sudden start showing interest in fighting Andrade after he messed up before?
When Demetrius moves up to 168, he needs to forget about Billy Joe and focus instead on top guys that aren’t going to duck him. He already knows from having been burned twice by Saunders that he has zero intention of ever fighting him.