By Edward Chaykovsky

Abel Sanchez, trainer of IBO/IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs), rejects any claims that his fighter was avoiding a potential showdown with former super middleweight king Andre Ward (29-0, 15KOs).

Last year there were some discussions for the fight. Ward's promoter, Roc Nation Sports, claims they submitted a good offer that was quickly rejected by Golovkin's promoter, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions.

Loeffler claims the offer was rejected because Golovkin was already contracted to face IBF champion David Lemieux in a middleweight unification fight on HBO Pay-Per-View.

The gap in weight is even further at the moment, with Ward moving up to 175-pounds earlier this year. Ward is scheduled to face Alexander Brand on August 6th, and if successful he will move forward with a showdown against IBF/WBA/WBO champion Sergey Kovalev on November 19th.

Golovkin is still fighting at 160-pounds and not likely to consider a move to 168 until next year at the earliest. He defends his belts on September 10th against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook at the O2 Arena in London.

Sanchez denies that a fight with Ward was turned down, because they never entered negotiations. Sanchez likes the fight and still believes that contest will happen.

"[The fight] has to be negotiated for it to be a fact [that we didn't want Ward]. It's not a fact that we didn't want to fight him. We wanted to fight him. I think that's a great fight. I think that's a fight that will happen eventually, but I think that it has to be understood that there's two parties [needed to negotiate] and there's not just Andre Ward," Sanchez said.

"We are willing to move up to fight, meaning that if there's no fight at 160, and there's a fight that makes sense at 168, then absolutely [we will take it]."