Sanchez: Geale Won’t Do To Golovkin What Ouma Did

by David P. Greisman

Abel Sanchez, trainer of middleweight titleholder Gennady Golovkin, agrees with those who see Daniel Geale as a step up from the other opponents that “GGG” has defeated.

“He’s definitely the most accomplished guy that we will have faced,” Sanchez told BoxingScene.com in a June interview. “Maybe not the biggest puncher, but the most accomplished as far as wins and what he has done. A two-time world champion, has one loss [to Darren Barker last year], which was a disputed loss. So we’re looking for an extra-hard challenge from Daniel. He’s got a great coach in Graham [Shaw], who is one of the lead coaches in Australia. So we know that he’s going to come in 100-percent prepared.”

Golovkin-Geale will take place on July 26 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It will headline an HBO broadcast.

Sanchez broke down the potential difficulties Golovkin will face in Geale.

“First of all, he’s a volume puncher. He’s not the biggest puncher, but he’s a volume puncher. He never stops throwing punches. Gennady has never seen that. He [Geale] has done that with other fighters. Whether he’s able to do that with Gennady remain to be seen. He’s experienced. He’s the same height as Gennady; we won’t have a reach advantage on him. All things being said, we think that if Daniel Geale doesn’t come 100-percent prepared, he’s in trouble. But I believe he’s going to be a 12-round fight, a difficult fight for us, but a great fight for the fans.”

Golovkin is 29-0 with 26 KOs. The farthest he’s been taken into a fight was his 10th-round stoppage of Kassim Ouma back in June 2011, a bout in which Ouma was able to battle it out with Golovkin.

“There’s a lot of circumstances that played into that fight that people don’t know, leading up to it,” Sanchez said. “Not in training, but in flights, in getting there the day of the fight at the weigh-in. No sleep in two days. His visa was suspended and he couldn’t travel. We got there right before the weigh-in, 6 o’clock at night on the day before the fight. Kassim was able to do things that were not because of Kassim, but more because of Gennady not being 100 percent at that moment.

“But Daniel Geale is superior to Kassim. Kassim is a 154-pounder, first of all, and second of all is a guy that is a little further along on the downside as far as his career is concerned. Geale just lost his title. Geale is at the prime of his career. So it’s completely different.”

Sanchez said circumstances played a big part in the way that fight played out, and he believes that no one will be able to take advantage of Golovkin the way Ouma was able to.

“There’s nobody in the middleweight division that’s going to do to Golovkin what Ouma did that particular night,” he said. “It was a matter of exhaustion. In the fourth round, I said to him, ‘You’re starting to worry me.’ He said, ‘Coach, it’s OK, it’s OK. I just don’t feel my arms.’ He was just exhausted because of circumstances. Ouma’s a great fighter. He just caught Golovkin on a bad night, for whatever reasons.

“There’s nobody in the middleweight division that’s going to go 12 rounds with Gennady Golovkin.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com