Why Gennady Golovkin Would Be Wise to Avoid Andre Ward
Gennady Golovkin is the scariest middleweight on the planet. He’s an aggressive stalker with great balance, pitch-perfect timing and precise footwork. He’s undefeated, enjoying an incredible 20-fight knockout streak and on his way to becoming one of the most successful middleweight titleholders of all time.
On top of that, the guy just might be the best pure puncher in all of boxing.
But as great as all that stuff sounds, Golovkin would be wise in avoiding a fight with lineal super middleweight champion Andre Ward for as long as humanly possible.
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Before all you Golovkin fans out there grumble in discord, hear me out.
Golovkin is a fantastic middleweight, but he has plenty left to do in the division before he should start thinking about a move up. This isn’t a case of a fighter who has cleaned out his division.
There is still much 160-pound work to be done.
His October 17 title unification against David Lemieux at Madison Square Garden in New York will be his first HBO pay-per-view, and should he prevail as expected in that surefire bloodbath, he’ll still have two meaningful 160-pound title fights on the horizon.
Golovkin has had a great run as the WBA middleweight titleholder. He’s defended the belt an astonishing 14 times in a row and has the potential to break Bernard Hopkins’ all-time divisional record of 20.
But Golovkin is not the lineal champion at middleweight. That honor belongs to Miguel Cotto and will ultimately go to whoever wins the Cotto vs. Canelo Alvarez clash in November.
Nor is Golovkin the holder of three other title belts: The WBC (Cotto), IBF (Lemieux) and WBO (Andy Lee) are all still out there for the taking. Should Golovkin defeat Lemieux for the IBF belt, the next two alluring options are unification bouts against the Cotto-Canelo winner and Lee.
Neither should be difficult fights to make.
According to Boxing News, Lee is ready and willing to make the fight, and WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes (h/t BoxingNews24.com) that he is just as anxious to make the winner of Cotto-Canelo face Golovkin as we are in seeing it.
In fact, according to the WBC, Golovkin should very much be next in line for a WBC title shot as he is listed as their interim champion (thusly the mandatory challenger).
Unifying the titles and becoming the lineal middleweight champion, as well as adding three impressive wins to his 14-fight title defense streak, would launch the 33-year-old’s career into rarefied middleweight air.
Golovkin’s legacy as a middleweight would start to look as good as any fighter’s ever, and a bout with Ward does nothing for it.
Besides, as fantastic as Ward is at his craft, he’s been inside the ring too little as of late to make a bout with Golovkin as lucrative for both men as such a high-caliber fight should be.
Ward has only been in the ring once over the last two years. And while he looked sharp against Paul Smith in June—it was Paul Smith. He absolutely should have looked great against a fighter of that level.
There are plenty of other compelling matchups for Ward at 168 and beyond. Bouts against George Groves or Fedor Chudinov would make some sense, as would tussles with light heavyweights Bernard Hopkins or Jean Pascal.
A win against either of the latter two men would be a nice setup to a lucrative and intriguing big-money fight between Ward and unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, a fight HBO executives, as well as fight fans, would probably salivate over.
But here’s the biggest reason Golovkin should avoid Ward for as long as possible: The 31-year-old American is a stylistic nightmare for him.
Don’t get me wrong. You won’t find anyone in boxing as enamored with Golovkin’s toolbox as Kelsey McCarson. But Ward is just all kinds of wrong for Golovkin. Any critical-minded boxing person would tell you that.
Need convincing?
Ward is bigger than Golovkin. He has a longer reach (71 inches to 70). He’s faster, and with Floyd Mayweather retiring, he is probably the premier sweet scientist in boxing today.
He’s in his prime and simply exceptional at what he does.
Against Ward, even things Golovkin is great at, such as wrecking opponents in close, might fail him. Because if you want to watch the best infighter in boxing do his thing today, watch Ward.
And no, it’s not that Golovkin would have no chance. He would. But look back at the long litany of great fights between pressure fighters and boxers in the past, and a pattern will emerge: Boxers almost always have the edge.
Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunney. Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather.
There’s simply an inert stylistic advantage a fighter has when he’s not coming forward and making the fight, when he’s jabbing, moving, counterpunching and employing sound footwork with defense.
All in all, Ward is just too great a risk for Golovkin right now. The fight just doesn't make sense no matter how good Golovkin looks right now.
Golovkin's charge is clear. The menacing middleweight monster should be wary of jumping in such deep waters so soon and so far away from the comfort of his 160-pound shores.
Because if he does, the 168-pound Ward just might drown him.
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