By Steve Kim, photo by Chris Farina
On the night of April 23rd at the Forum in Inglewood, California, WBA/IBF middleweight champion, Gennady Golovkin faces his IBF mandatory challenger Dominic Wade. He admits that as of a few weeks that he had no clue who Wade was.
"I didn't know who is that,"he told the gathered media on Tuesday afternoon at the Conga Room at LA Live, where a formal announcement was made for that fight."Just Tom(Loeffler) he tell me. It's mandatory, IBF challenger. Yeah, OK, of course I'm ready to do mandatory, this is business. I'm not selfish, like I need big fights, like money fights, no. He's mandatory, of course."
Golovkin, who has a record of 34-0(31 KO's), says he still hasn't seen any video of Wade (18-0/12 KO's).
Abel Sanchez who trains 'GGG' recalled a conversation he had the the Rock gym in Carson, California several years ago to a fellow trainer.
"We were talking who we had, I don't think Gennady was a champion, yet, and I was telling him about this middleweight that I had and he's telling me about this young pro who had this great amateur career that was going to make some noise at middleweight, Dominic Wade.
"And now we find ourselves 18 fights [later facing] him, he's undefeated and hopefully puts up a good fight.
While the respected trainer did see Wade's victory over Sam Soliman last June, Sanchez stated,"I'm looking for somebody better than the guy I saw versus Soliman."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
