By Radio Rahim
One of the hottest topics in boxing is a potential fight between WBA/IBO middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (33-0, 30KOs) and WBA super middleweight ruler Andre Ward (28-0, 15KOs).
Ward finally returned from a long layoff in June, but fought at a catch-weight of 172-pounds, near the light heavyweight limit, when stopping Paul Smith.
Golovkin is back on October 17th in a unification with IBF middleweight champion David Lemiuex.
Ward has been calling for a fight with Golovkin in recent weeks and feels very confident that he's still capable of making the super middleweight limit of 168.
Golovkin's promoter, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, explained the current situation with facing Ward.
Loeffler say their first priority is to unify the entire middleweight division. After Lemieux, the WBC has already ordered the winner of November's WBC title clash between Miguel Cotto and Saul Alvarez to face Golovkin next. Then the remaining target would be Andy Lee, who holds the WBO belt.
"It makes no sense to talk about a fight with Ward because he was out for a long time and then he fought at 172, so it's not really realistic at this point - but after [Golovkin] unifies the middleweight division, then it might be possible," Loeffler told BoxingScene.com.
"There is not much to discuss there and there haven't been discussions about a fight with Andre. At this point it seems less likely to happen. And if he's fighting at 172, and [Sergey] Kovalev is fighting at 175, then that seems like the likely fight to happen. If he does come back to 168 and he defends his title, and Gennady unifies the middleweight division then that would be a great fight and Gennady said he would like that fight. At that point we could see what makes sense with doing that fight."
Golovkin was the victim of a recent backlash after GGG's team disclosed that a fight with Ward (at least at this point) would have to take place at a catch-weight of 164 - but they were willing to face both Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Carl Froch at the full super middleweight limit of 168.
Loeffler indicates that a fight with Chavez would have brought in a lot of money, and old sold tickets, and it would have been Golovkin's first pay-per-view event. The same with Froch, who would have brought millions of dollars in UK pay-per-view revenue to the table. In the case of Ward, Loeffler feels the financial reward is not currently there.
"The only reason we were talking about fighting Chavez last year at 168-pounds and Froch this year at 168-pounds, is because the Chavez fight would have been [Golovkin's] first pay-per-view fight last year, and Froch sold [80,000] tickets in England [for the Groves rematch] and brings all of money from the British pay-per-view," Loeffler said.