Andre Ward isn’t afraid of Gennady Golovkin.
The RING super middleweight champion is “perfectly willing and able” to schedule a fight with WBA middleweight titleholder Gennady Golovkin said a representative for Ward to RingTV.com.
“A couple of weeks ago, they put to rest whether or not they would move up or down to fight. Andre Ward will fight anyone. The reality is that I don’t think that these guys really want to fight him,” said Josh Dubin, an attorney speaking on behalf of Ward. “There’s nobody even two weight classes above or two weight classes below that could even win a round against Andre at this point, let alone beat him, and they know that.”
Dubin said that he called RingTV.com at the request of Ward so that the fighter could respond to recent comments by Abel Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer. Sanchez said Golovkin (30-0, 27 knockouts) had surpassed Ward (27-0, 14 KOs) from a marketability standpoint and that Ward no longer had bargaining leverage for a match-up between the two.
“If a fight with Gennady could be discussed, the fact is that Andre is on an island with the belief that he can demand terms,” said Sanchez. “That makes it un-makeable and un-workable when he wants the major portion of the money.”
Dubin and subsequently Ward, obviously didn’t share Sanchez’s belief.
“Apparently, Abel Sanchez is breathing too much of that Big Bear mountain air… Time and time again, this man keeps going on the record and saying things with a complete detachment from reality,” said Dubin.
“For him to say that Andre Ward could not dictate terms in a fight between Andre Ward and Gennady Golovkin and that Gennady Golovkin is a bigger star is pure fantasy… The last I checked, Abel Sanchez is a trainer, not a manager and he’s not calling any shots over there. So that’s just a lot of hot air.”
In his most recent fight on July 26, Golovkin scored a third round technical knockout over Daniel Geale.
Ward has not fight in a long time as a result of a January 2013 surgery to repair his right shoulder and legal issues with his promoter Dan Goossen. Ward’s last fight was a unanimous decision over Edwin Rodriguez last November.
