by David P. Greisman
Demetrius Andrade is willing to move up from junior middleweight to face middleweight wrecking ball Gennady Golovkin — later in the future, that is.
There are other things he wants to accomplish first, victories he feels would help make a Golovkin fight bigger than it would be right now.
“This is how I picture me fighting Golovkin: I beat the Charlo brothers, right? I beat Lara. I beat Canelo. I might beat somebody else, no name, and then how ‘Mayweather and Pacquiao’ is should be ‘Demetrius Andrade and GGG,’ ” Andrade said. “That type of mega-fight, know what I’m saying? I’m not going to waste that now when we can fight for millions of dollars down the line.”
He feels he’d be flushing money down the drain “if I beat him now.”
“Because who else will I be fighting in the 160 division?” Andrade said. “They don’t want to face me. Why would they want to face me after I beat ‘GGG’?”
Andrade won a world title at 154 pounds in late 2013 with a split decision over Vanes Martirosyan, then defended the belt in June 2014 with a dominant stoppage of Brian Rose. He was expected to face Jermell Charlo last December, only to turn down the bout because he felt the money and situation weren’t right.
He wants a Golovkin fight to be right as well, and that means raising his stature first.
“I want to build myself. This is going to be an epic fight like Mayweather and Pacquiao. It’s not going to be an epic fight right now. It’s not going to be,” Andrade said, noting that while the hardcore boxing followers might get excited, the larger fan base wouldn’t necessarily tune in.
“When Demetrius Andrade beats X, Y and Z, and ‘GGG’ iss stopping everybody, and let’s put them two together, then you’ve got a mega fight,” he said.
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