By Edward Chaykovsky
Gennady Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez, says a potential fight with Andre Ward would have never come off - because Ward would have never been capable of making the super middleweight limit of 168-pounds.
Ward's handlers attempted to secure a fight with Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs) last year.
According to Ward, Golovkin's team rejected the fight and told him the earliest they would consider such contest is the first quarter of 2017.
Sanchez believes the fight would have never happened last year or this year, because Ward (30-0, 15KOs) was no longer capable of making 168 - and Golovkin would have never fought him at anything higher.
Because of promotional issues and injuries, Ward was inactive from November of 2013 to June of 2015. When he returned that June against Paul Smith, the fight took place at a catch-weight of 172.
Ward would go on to vacate his super middleweight crown and make his light heavyweight debut in March of this year. He challenges WBO/WBA/WBA 175-pound champion Sergey Kovalev on November 19th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Golovkin, who holds the WBA/IBO/WBC/IBF middleweight titles two divisions south, is focused on unifying all of the titles before making a move to super middleweight.
Sanchez points to some recent statements from Ward, where the Olympic gold medal winner made it clear that he would never be able to get back down to 168 - and even admitted that making 175 is no walk in the park.
"[A fight with Ward] is impossible. Andre Ward has already stated that he could have never made 168-pounds and that’s why he moved up to 175-pounds. He stated it, not me. If that fight would have been made with Andre, it wouldn’t have been at 168-pounds, it would have been at 170-pounds. I don’t think that he wants to come back down, I don’t see him winning against Kovalev and maybe if he loses to Kovalev he will come down," Sanchez told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
