By Radio Rahim
According to Abel Sanchez, trainer of WBC/IBO/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs), they would have no issue with fighting Andre Ward (30-0, 15KOs) at the super middleweight limit of 168-pounds.
Golovkin returns to the ring on September 10th at the O2 Arena in London, where he defends his titles against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook.
Ward will take part in the most dangerous fight of his career on November 19th, when he challenges IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The two sides had some minor discussions last year, but they never went anywhere. Ward's side is adamant that Golovkin and his team walked away from the fight and demanded a catch-weight of 164-pounds. Sanchez denies that claim, stating that there were never any negotiations.
Sanchez is picking Kovalev to beat Ward - and believes a loss would likely make Ward much easier to deal with in negotiations. Ward was demanding a 50-50 split - and Golovkin's handlers believes they were entitled to a bigger piece of the pie.
"If Andre gets beat, then he's not on that high pedestal anymore in his own mind. He might come down [with his monetary demands] in negotiations and then there could be negotiations to make a fight. There comes a point where you think so much of yourself where it's tough to deal with you, so the fights don't get made," Sanchez told BoxingScene.com.
However, Sanchez believes the fight will never happen - at least in the near future - because Ward recently revealed that he'll never be physically capable of making 168 again - and even said it's not entirely easy for him to get down to his new division limit of 175. Ward officially moved up to 175 in March of this year.
"Andre just stated publicly, a couple of weeks ago, that it's impossible for him to make 168 and that's why he moved up to 175. He even said that it's hard for him to make 175," Sanchez said.
