By Allan Fox: Light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev’s former trainer Abel Sanchez thinks unbeaten former super middleweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward (30-0, 15 KOs) isn’t ready to take on a top 175lb fighter like Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs), and he expects him to lose their fight on November 19 on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez thinks the 32-year-old Ward was a great fighter many years ago when he was in the Super Six tournament from 2009 to 2011, but that fighter no longer seems to exist. Ward has changed, and Sanchez has seen that. Further, Sanchez feels that Ward is taking too quick of a step up in facing the 33-year-old Kovalev in just his third fight since moving up to light heavyweight.
By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez could be facing some very dangerous fights for him now that he’s moving up to middleweight, says Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez. With Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy wanting his fights in early 2017 to be televised on HBO pay-per-view, it means that he’s going to need to fight good middleweights like David Lemieux, Billy Joe Saunders or Curtis Stevens, says Sanchez. He feels those will be dangerous fights for Canelo that he could potentially lose.
Sanchez isn’t sure if those fights would result in Canelo being in a war, but he does think those will be matches where he’ll definitely be in a fight. Golovkin has already beaten Lemieux and Stevens by a knockout. Those were easy fights for him, but they may not be easy matches for Canelo. He doesn’t have the same boxing skills that Golovkin possesses.
By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Abel Sanchez says he has no problems with WBC welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (32-0, 18 KOs) taking a tune-up fight to get him ready for a fight against WBA World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) in early 2017. Sanchez notes that Garcia’s management don’t fight him enough to keep him sharp, and they match him against too many poor opponents.
Sanchez feels that it’s not possible for Garcia to beat the better fighters due to him fighting so infrequently, and against bad opposition. For this reason, Sanchez feels that Garcia will lose to Thurman next year when the two of them face each other in the first quarter of 2017.
By Patrick McHugh: Gennady Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez compares the lowball $10 million offer from Golden Boy Promotions to Golovkin for a fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez to a $40 million offer Floyd Mayweather Jr. made to Manny Pacquiao in the past for a mega-fight between them. Pacquiao wisely turned down the $40 million from Mayweather.
Later on the two stars fought each other in May 2015, and Pacquiao walked away with $200 million for the fight, says Sanchez. Had Pacquiao agreed to the $40 million that Mayweather initially offered him for the fight, then he would have lost out on a huge amount of money.
By Allan Fox: Trainer Abel Sanchez is sticking with his pick of IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) having too much power and size for former super middleweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward (30-0, 15 KOs) for their fight in less than two months on November 19 on HBO pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez has noticed that the 32-year-old Ward has lost a lot from his game since coming back to the sport in 2015 following a two-year layoff from boxing. Ward hasn’t looked like the same fighter despite being put in with three soft opponents in a row in Paul Smith, Sullivan Barrera and Alexander Brand. Sanchez says that Ward was given every opportunity to look like a star by being put in with those three fighters, and he either couldn’t or wouldn’t do the job.
By Scott Gilfoid: Abel Sanchez, the trainer for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs), says he sees the blown up welterweight Kell “Special K” Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) as a “science experiment” for his fighter this Saturday night on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Sanchez says that Brook is going to “brutally discover” what it’s like to be in the ring with Triple G, when he faces him this Saturday.
Brook has spent over two months bulking up to the mid-170s for this fight, and he hopes that his extra size will help him pull off an upset in this fight. Sanchez doesn’t see it as possible, and he expects it to be a brutal reality check for the 30-year-old Brook.
By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Abel Sanchez sees IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s recent weight gain as a sure sign that he’s going to attempt to use his weight to bully IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in their fight on September 10.
Sanchez sees Brook, who recently weighed in at 176lbs for the 30-day weigh-in, trying to use his size to muscle GGG with clinching and other wrestling techniques to shut down his offense the way he did with Shawn Porter. Sanchez doesn’t think it’s going to work at all. He says that if Brook attempts to bully Golovkin, it’ll be a great fight but it’ll end with a knockout for his fighter.
By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Abel Sanchez believes that Kell “Special K” Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) is going to need to use movement on September 10 if he doesn’t want to get knocked out by his fighter Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Sanchez doesn’t know for a fact whether Brook can hurt Golovkin, but he does know that Triple G can hurt him if he can land his shots. That’s why Sanchez thinks that Brook is going to need to use a lot of movement in this fight if he doesn’t want to get knocked out.
However, Sanchez has doubts whether Brook can do a lot of moving with his current weight of 176lbs. He believes that it’s going to be tough on Brook to move for long in the fight with him carrying around that kind of weight.
By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook is really out of his class in more ways than one in his coming fight against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) on September 10. While Brook is moving up two entire divisions for this fight, which would make his job hard enough, he’s also facing what could be the hardest puncher in the 160lb division. That’s bad for Brook (36-0, 25 KOs), because he’s been dining on weak fodder opposition for the most part for the last 12 years of his pro career.
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez sees Brook getting smashed to bits early on when he tries to use his new bulk to trade with Golovkin in their fight at the O2 Arena in London, England. Sanchez thinks that the pro-Brook crowd will make him brave, and he’ll want to battle Triple G in a toe-to-toe brawl to please his adoring fans.
That in turn will lead to Brook’s worse nightmares coming true with him getting smashed fairly quickly. Sanchez sees Brook going down for the final count by the 5th. He can’t see Brook lasting past round five, especially with all that weight that he’s put on lately.
Brook weighed in at 176lbs during the World Boxing Council’s mandated 30-day weight check this month. Sanchez doesn’t see that weight going anywhere. I mean, Brook will take off 16 of the pounds to get down to 160lbs for the weigh-in on September 9, but then he’ll promptly put the weight back on in a hurry and then some in the 24 hours before the fight. Heck, we might even see Brook rehydrate a little too much by going past the weight he took off from 176. Fighters do that accidentally when they go overboard with their rehydrating.
By Chris Williams: If Manny Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) makes the mistake of agreeing to fight WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) at 140, he’ll lose the fight, according to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez. However, Sanchez thinks it’ll be so hard for Pacquiao to drop the needed weight to get to 140 that he’ll end up weakened in the process of dropping the weight. On the flipside, Sanchez says that Pacquiao gets Crawford to move up to 147 to fight him, then Pacquiao will win.
“I think Terence beats Manny at 140 pounds because Manny would kill himself to get down there, no matter what he says,” said Sanchez to the dailynews.com. ”But I think Manny wins at 147.”
Pacquiao should tell Crawford that if he wants to fight him, then he needs to come up to welterweight and beat a top name like Errol Spence Jr. first.
