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****** comparison. Those were not championship fights. They were tune ups. I didn't read anything beyond that in your post because your credibility ended after that.This is very true but not /thread because I have a little more to add
In terms of this article, I didn't even read it because Ward already did a "Brook move" when he fought Paul Smith not to mention Alexander Brand who is a lifetime super middleweight.
What kind of fighter tries to bring up a fighter from the weight class below them, but then demand tuneups first for themselves? Since when does the bigger fighter need tuneups to face someone from the lower division? That is what Ward tried to do with Golovkin.
So let's just talk the facts. What would the fans say if GGG said he was willing to fight Canelo, but only if HBO gave GGG two tuneups first against Joshua Clottey and Jan Zaveck? What if GGG was literally ducking Canelo, and refusing to fight him, until HBO paid him to fight Jan Zaveck and Humberto Soto first to get ready for Canelo?
If GGG demanded that, the backlash he would get would be 100x times what Ward got for actually doing that (LOL!). That just shows the real double standard is not in favor of fighters like GGG, but is actually in favor of fighters like Ward.
The expectations are incredibly low for Ward. No matter how low his career sunk the last five years, there were still some fans defending him, still some keeping him #2 on their pound for pound lists.
This man went four or five years without even TRYING to fight one top opponent. He apparently sued his own promoter for no other reason I can think of except for his promoter had set up the Super 6 for him to win and become a "star," and now his promoter wanted him to actually take the star fights, the PPV fights, against the top opponents, to start making bank, at least that's what would make sense and that was the sense people were getting at the time. But Ward it seems wanted to be able to pick his own opponents, not the top ones. Except then even after Goosen, he tried to pull that with HBO, and they said they wouldn't go for it even with Roc Nation promoting him, and sent him to BET.
So Ward was the epitome of everything wrong with the sport during this time, and some fans still defended him. If GGG sued his promoter x times, lost every time, used it as an excuse to duck Jacobs, Canelo, Saunders, and Quillin for the next four years, boxing fans would never let him live it down. But when it comes to fighters like Ward and Floyd, there seems to be a double standard that says they can do no wrong. That the same standards don't apply to them as everyone else.
Even now he's fighting Kovalev since HBO said he had to fight Kovalev or GGG if he wanted a contract with them, make no mistake, there's a reason he wouldn't fight Stevenson before. Obviously Kovalev is not an easy fight or Ward would have pushed for it before HBO demanded it, but as much as I expect Kovalev to win, you can bet Ward looked at Kovalev out of all the top guys and said a european fighter without great hand speed... I can beat those guys. But a slick southpaw in Stevenson with just as much speed as Ward, and a bazooka for a left hand? He will never fight Stevenson. If he wouldn't fight Bute, you can bet he won't fight Stevenson lol. I knew from the moment Kovalev and Stevenson came on the scene that if Ward had to fight one or the other, he would choose Kovalev.
That's the double standard. Ward can pick and choose styles he likes within his own weight class, 175 (because even at 168 he was a "scaled down light heavyweight" according to his trainer, so 175 is natural for him), but GGG is expected to fight everyone in his weight class, and he does. No offense to AB but GGG is the real can man. Anyone can get it. They may not want it with GGG, but he will fight anyone. With Ward it just doesn't seem to work that way, as Yvon Michel alluded to earlier.Comment
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This coming from a guy who in the last 4 years has fought Alexander Brand, Sullivan Barrera, Paul Smith, and Edwin Rodriguez, with all but one in his backyard, resulting in 1 KO.Comment
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It seems that Ward haters and supporters often neglect to mention that it was Golovkin's coach, Abel Sanchez, that said GGG could beat any opponent between the 154 and 168 lb divisions. Andre Ward called their "bluff", as it turns out, and this is how this whole back and forth started.
Another thing that everyone seems to be overlooking is how much attention the talk about these two fighting has gotten from both the media and the fans since it was first mentioned. This would have been one of if not the biggest fight in boxing at the time. Not because of the draw of either fighter but because of the compelling nature of having two such high level competitors face each other. Yet it was GGG's team that said that the fight didn't make sense because it would not make enough dollars. They were only interested in facing Froch or Chavez at 168. One of which Andre Ward had already soundly defeated in the Super Six and the other who is a obviously faded fighter who's claim to fame is his father's legacy. These two were postulated as being much more lucrative options at Super Middle Weight than Andre Ward by team GGG. Yet the hoopla about Ward vs GGG is what has captivated the minds of the boxing media and the hardcore boxing fans. These forums light up when ever the two are mentioned in the same article. That is a clear sign that the fight would do quite well at the box office.
The third thing that no one seems to mention, and its so bizarre because pretty much all interested parties have been on camera saying it, is that Team GGG would only be willing to face Ward on 50/50 terms which included equal pay and a catch weight of 164 lbs which would be an equal weight compromise. At first it seemed that Andre Ward scoffed at this proposal because of the weight demand that they would impose on him but wouldn't impose on Froch or Chavez. But according to Andre Ward the offer that was made to Team GGG and subsequently rejected within minutes was a 50\50 offer that included an even weight compromise for both. We all know that at the time the last weight that Ward competed at was 172 lbs against Paul Smith. So we don't know if the offer was for the fight to be at 164 lbs which would be a compromise of a catch weight between SMW and MW or 166 lbs which would be a compromise between Middle Weight and Ward's last weight that he had competed at during that time. But according to Ward even though Roc Nation sent the offer before knowing that a fight with Golovkin and Lemieux had just been agreed to their offer included a provision for both fighters being allowed to take one fight each before facing each other. So the Lemieux fight would not have been an impediment to making a fight between the two and Ward would have been given ample time to get down to the agreed upon weight that would have been somewhere between 164 and 166 lbs. Yet GGG and his team outright rejected the offer without even sending a counter proposal.
I know that this forum has some pretty diehard Golovkin fans that won't relent no matter what is presented to them. But if this is really how it all played out then there is no doubt that GGG and his team just did not want this fight to happen and thats all that there is to it.
Somewhere along the way the war of words got more personal than it needed to get and now its seems like the two sides despise each other. Abel Sanchez calling Andre Ward a diva; GGG going on an uncharacteristic rant disparaging Ward's career and saying that he is dead to him; Andre Ward dubbing Golovkin as Little G along with closing the door on the possibility and moving up to Light Heavy Weight permanently seem to have just made them into adversaries that will never compete against one another. Its a shame that the saga had to play out this way because they are both athletes of the highest order and both seem to be nice easy going people.Comment
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Yea.. Imagine if Ward actually fought somebody. That would be something.Comment
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Ward the #2 P4P wanted to fight little Golovkin. He's actually getting a pass from the same demographic.Comment
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/thread...Cotto wants catchweight to fight Golovkin
Golovkin Fans - Catchweights are bullshit, cowardly.
Golovkin wants catchweight to fight Ward
Golovkin Fans - That's fair.
It's suggested Canelo wants a catchweight to fight Golovkin
Golovkin Fans - Catchweights are bullshit, cowardly.
Ward moves up fully to 175
Golovkin Fans - Ward is 2 divisions up, he's too big for GGG.
Canelo announces his fight with Khan, Khan will be moving up 8lbs
Golovkin Fans - Canelo is a coward fighting a welterweight
Golovkin announces fight with Brook, Brook will be moving up 2 divisions and 13lbs
Golovkin Fans - It's fine, loads of fighters have done it in the past.
Ward says Golovkin gets a lot of passes other fighters wouldn't
Golovkin Fans - Ward is an hypocrite.
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