New York - A fight that many fight fans have been interested in seeing is a showdown between WBA/IBO middleweight champion, Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 33 KO’s) and super middleweight Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KO’s).
Golovkin has a collision lined up with IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-1, 32 KO’s). While Ward is rumored to be fighting on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view card after he recently fought this past June at a catch-weight of 172 lbs.
Team Golovkin is intent on unifying the belts at the present time but think the more relevant Ward becomes, the better a chance a fight can be made.
“It’s good to see him fighting on the undercard,” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez said in regard to Ward possibly returning on the Cotto-Canelo card. “Ward needs to become more relevant. As long as he’s fighting and he’s winning and looking good it makes a fight with Gennady more viable. But right now Gennady’s intent is to be fighting the Lemieux then the winner of Canelo-Cotto, so he’s going to be tied up a little while. Andre’s last fight was at 172 and I think his next fight will be even higher than that. It doesn’t mean he won’t come back down to 168.”
Sanchez wanted to clarify certain statements made from the Golovkin camp when saying they would fight anybody from 154 pounds to 168 pounds.
“We’d go from 154 or 168 to if it makes financial sense, it doesn’t make financial sense to fight Andre Ward at 168 or at any weight because Andre likes to have everything his way. He’s not the A-side here. He’s not relevant like what we’re doing here. He’s not the A-side. Until that happens that he’s relevant selling tickets like we’re doing especially if he’s fighting on an undercard, he can’t dictate terms.”
The Managing Director of K2 Promotions Tom Loeffler, who promote Golovkin recently told ESPN.com that a fight with Ward with be 50/50 in money terms but would have to happen at a catch weight. Loeffler said he was hypothetically speaking because there have been any negotiations as of yet between Golovkin’s side and Roc Nation Sports, who promote Ward.
“It’s one thing to say you’re going to fight him and it’s another thing to actually do it,” Loeffler said to the media. “His attorney wrote a letter to HBO saying they wanted to fight Golovkin. He’s fighting at 172 right now and we don’t know if he’s coming to 168. Gennady is content at 160 to unify all of the titles. He’s got on champion lined up and the winner of Cotto-Canelo. The 164 was a hypothetical but that’s all it is because there really have been no discussions for Ward.”
In terms as to why they would fight Carl Froch at 168 and not Ward, Loefller said:
“Ward-Golovkin is not a realistic fight at this point. Maybe after Golovkin unifies the titles we can talk the Ward fight. Froch just fought in front of 80,000 people in Wembley Stadium and UK pay-per-view money and that’s why we were willing to go up. No disrespect to Andre, just like we would go down to fight Floyd (Mayweather) at 154, it makes sense. It just doesn’t make sense to fight Andre because he’s not that relevant. There’s no guarantee that he fights at 168.”
Sanchez echoes the sentiment
“At this point we don’t need them, they need us.”
Golovkin has a collision lined up with IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-1, 32 KO’s). While Ward is rumored to be fighting on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view card after he recently fought this past June at a catch-weight of 172 lbs.
Team Golovkin is intent on unifying the belts at the present time but think the more relevant Ward becomes, the better a chance a fight can be made.
“It’s good to see him fighting on the undercard,” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez said in regard to Ward possibly returning on the Cotto-Canelo card. “Ward needs to become more relevant. As long as he’s fighting and he’s winning and looking good it makes a fight with Gennady more viable. But right now Gennady’s intent is to be fighting the Lemieux then the winner of Canelo-Cotto, so he’s going to be tied up a little while. Andre’s last fight was at 172 and I think his next fight will be even higher than that. It doesn’t mean he won’t come back down to 168.”
Sanchez wanted to clarify certain statements made from the Golovkin camp when saying they would fight anybody from 154 pounds to 168 pounds.
“We’d go from 154 or 168 to if it makes financial sense, it doesn’t make financial sense to fight Andre Ward at 168 or at any weight because Andre likes to have everything his way. He’s not the A-side here. He’s not relevant like what we’re doing here. He’s not the A-side. Until that happens that he’s relevant selling tickets like we’re doing especially if he’s fighting on an undercard, he can’t dictate terms.”
The Managing Director of K2 Promotions Tom Loeffler, who promote Golovkin recently told ESPN.com that a fight with Ward with be 50/50 in money terms but would have to happen at a catch weight. Loeffler said he was hypothetically speaking because there have been any negotiations as of yet between Golovkin’s side and Roc Nation Sports, who promote Ward.
“It’s one thing to say you’re going to fight him and it’s another thing to actually do it,” Loeffler said to the media. “His attorney wrote a letter to HBO saying they wanted to fight Golovkin. He’s fighting at 172 right now and we don’t know if he’s coming to 168. Gennady is content at 160 to unify all of the titles. He’s got on champion lined up and the winner of Cotto-Canelo. The 164 was a hypothetical but that’s all it is because there really have been no discussions for Ward.”
In terms as to why they would fight Carl Froch at 168 and not Ward, Loefller said:
“Ward-Golovkin is not a realistic fight at this point. Maybe after Golovkin unifies the titles we can talk the Ward fight. Froch just fought in front of 80,000 people in Wembley Stadium and UK pay-per-view money and that’s why we were willing to go up. No disrespect to Andre, just like we would go down to fight Floyd (Mayweather) at 154, it makes sense. It just doesn’t make sense to fight Andre because he’s not that relevant. There’s no guarantee that he fights at 168.”
Sanchez echoes the sentiment
“At this point we don’t need them, they need us.”
where have we seen this tactic before 
once that offer in Nottingham came in
