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GGG only fought Brook since Canelo dropped his belt to avoid GGG and GGG was about to face Eubank who didnt find his pen to sign the fight, they had a venue booked and a date, Brook jumped in to take the fight.
Also they are basically the same size, walk around the same weight, just that Brook drains himself like crazy to make 147 like Spence does.
Spence vs Garcia on the other hand? Haymon could easily make Spence vs his other PBC welterweights, Crawford called out Spence but Spence basically prefers to fight the smaller Garcia.
Spence is black, he is the US PBC fighter, he will probably become a P4P fighter for beating Garcia. SMDH.Comment
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When a ggg/Ward fight was a real possibility (not when Ward was in a legal battle, not when Ward was injured), team ggg insisted that the fight could only happen at 164. They knew that Ward would be hard pressed to make 168 and 164 was out of the question. This was after approving 168 for both Chavez Jr and Froch. Team ggg could act like they wanted a Ward fight without ever having to fight him. Clear DUCK. After things broke down, Ward moved up a weight class to fight the #1 light heavy in the perceived Killer Kovalev and ggg drug the #3 or #4 welter weight up not one but two weight classes for a fight. So who was looking to fight quality opposition and who wasn't?
As far as a Lara fight. Even I don't think Lara has a chance vs ggg. Doesn't change the fact that when team ggg bragged anyone from 154-168 can get some, Lara answered the call and team ggg wouldn't even consider it. If they would have, Lara would easily be gggs second best win.
I'm just going to call you the Fly because all you do is eat shyte and bother peopleComment
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This is embarassing...Brook and GGG the same size?GGG only fought Brook since Canelo dropped his belt to avoid GGG and GGG was about to face Eubank who didnt find his pen to sign the fight, they had a venue booked and a date, Brook jumped in to take the fight.
Also they are basically the same size, walk around the same weight, just that Brook drains himself like crazy to make 147 like Spence does.
Spence vs Garcia on the other hand? Haymon could easily make Spence vs his other PBC welterweights, Crawford called out Spence but Spence basically prefers to fight the smaller Garcia.
Spence is black, he is the US PBC fighter, he will probably become a P4P fighter for beating Garcia. SMDH.
You are embarassing.
Spence is also embarassing, but not as bad as Jubei
Embarassing.Comment
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Personally I don't think either Ward or GGG wanted that fight, business wise at least. Yeah it would have been a big legacy fight for each guy but would have been very risky in that one would lose and would hardly bring in any money.
I don't recall this time period that you are talking about - was it after all of Ward's issues? I hope you would agree that GGG and his team have always been pretty straight up on negotiating - he has always been the A side but whenever a guy really wanted to do it the deal got done. He would fight guys on their home turf or a neutral site and didn't seem to be too hung up on trivial details.
Meanwhile I would expect even an Andre Ward fan to admit that he was notorious for being a diva and being hard to negotiate with. He tried to negotiate like Floyd, like he was the A side, but he never really brought in any money. Fought all his fights at home. Never fought Froch in the UK or Bute in Canada for big money. Point being, unless Ward got everything his way I don't think that fight was happening. I think if Ward offered something 50/50 - money, venue, weight etc, GGG would have done it because he would want the challenge. And going up to face a guy is always easier than having that guy come to you. Ward/Kov; Garcia/Spence are good examples. If you lose to the bigger guy you don't get as much flak. If you lose to the smaller guy it can be an embarrassment. So partially for that reason I think GGG would have been more willing to move up in weight somewhat for Ward, but again it would have had to have been a fair deal and Andre, love him or hate him, had to have everything his way (all his fights at home; making Dawson come all the way down to 168; etc).
As you said with Lara - GGG is one of the biggest names in boxing and maybe the biggest as far as when you mention his name, you get headlines. He is that controversial in a way. Every time a fighter has a fight coming up or needs attention, they mention GGG, just how it is. They know he has a big fan base and also a lot of haters so mentioning him will get a lot of attention.
I actually think Lara would have taken that fight but I don't think they ever made a formal offer so I can't really say he wanted it either. I actually think that would have been a good fight - would it have been closer to Angulo Lara with GGG being a much better version of Angulo and KOing Lara...or would it have been similar to Canelo Lara where it was a close fight and went to decision. I like Lara a lot and have never really seen him outclassed so I wouldn't count him out of that one, but I do think he would probably have been a little too small for GGG at 160.Comment
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Are you trolling lol. He literally has the picture of GGG and Brook where they look the same. Brook weighed more than GGG the whole time they were shedding weight lol. Still a big step up in class and weight for Brook in that fight, but purely size wise, he isn't really much smaller than GGG, if at all.Comment
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I think Ward wanted the fight. I think he was looking for $$$/legacy fights to close out his career. I know team ggg absolutely didn't want this fight. In hindsight this was a good career move for ggg. It's highly unlikely that he would have beaten Ward and he made millions vs Canelo that he probably wouldn't have made with a Ward loss on his resume.
When ggg wanted a fight the deal got done? Yes. But that shows that they didn't want a Ward fight.
Made Dawson come down to 168? In the post fight interviews after Dawson's previous fight. He looked fight into HBOs camera and said 168 for Ward, no problem.
Ward a diva in negotiations? There's truth in that. Not really any excuses but did you see anything in the first Froch fight that leads you to believe Froch could EVER beat Ward? And anyone that thinks Bute could beat Ward please make your case.
I'm sure Lara would have taken the fight. You just went into a rant about A side/B side but now you excuse team ggg because Lara made no formal offer? News flash, A side makes the offer.
Early in his US exposure, after he had just crushed another B/C level opponent, team ggg said anyone from 154-168 can get some. I thought to myself, hey look another Tommy Hearns. Crushing power, good skill and truly willing to fight anyone. It turned out to be just more bark than bite.Comment
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I think Ward kind of wanted it, on his terms though, as I mentioned previously. I mainly think Ward knew the terms he offered would never work and wanted to act like he wanted the fight and get the attention that comes with making that claim. And Ward was the clear B side with GGG so he had no real room to negotiate. GGG had to offer 168 for Chavez or Froch because they were the A side (and he would get big money in those fights)...he had less room to negotiate...
My point in mentioning the Dawson issue is that it was well documented leading up to the fight that Dawson was killing himself to make 168. He was getting KOd in sparring and I think he had to lose like 9 pounds the day of the weigh in! It was Ward's right to hold Dawson to the 168 agreement but it was an example of Ward refusing to give an inch in trying to make fair terms for a fight. He tried to negotiate like he was Floyd but he wasn't a superstar like Floyd so he cost himself a lot of big money fights.
Case in point with Froch and Bute. Ward beat Froch fairly comfortably imo, but it was a 7-5 win (as 2 judges had it) on my card. Ward pissed away a few rounds by getting outworked iirc. My point in mentioning the Froch rematch and Bute fight is to reinforce that Ward would often refuse to negotiate fairly to get a deal done. The truth is Ward could have made big money fights with them but he would have had to have been willing to fight them on their home turf, something he didn't do his whole career.
You could claim it was a smart move as those fighters could have a won a hometown decision since Ward fights generally go 12 rounds and have limited action. But that isn't the point - the point is that those situations are examples of Ward refusing to negotiate and wanting everything his way. Which is the same stuff he was trying to do with GGG. When you are the B side, as Ward was with all of those situations, you can't negotiate like that and expect to get a deal done.
Man I'm not trying to be rude lol, but I gotta say I don't know if you know much about boxing to say that the A side always makes the offer. That is just factually incorrect. Either side can make an offer and if you really want a fight you can make an offer. Fury/Wilder 1st fight comes to mind. Sometimes even when you make an offer it can be a poor one and be an example of a guy trying to not make the fight. Joshua/Wilder negotiations come to mind. There are a lot of ways to not make a fight. If two guys want to fight it is pretty easy to get a deal done and either side can start that process.
Objectively evaluating the situation GGG has always been a pretty straight up negotiator and Ward has always been shady and a bit of a diva. GGG doesn't fight all of his fights at home or in certain locations; all of his fights have been neutral or usually on the road. Ward has dropped a belt (much different situation than the GGG/Dervy/Canelo situation) and as I mentioned previously has shown himself to be a very tough negotiator. If GGG is much easier to deal with, as you seem to agree with, then if the fight between them didn't happen isn't it logical to put more blame on the guy who refuses to budge, even when he is the clear B side?
To put this situation another way - Froch was the reason why GGG and Froch never fought at 168 (Froch didn't want the fight). Ward was the reason why Froch and Ward never fought (again in the UK) at 168. Ward didn't want to risk a loss and didn't want to relinquish control of the whole process.Comment
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