As Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs) and Dominic Wade (18-0, 12KOs) went through fight week in preparation for their battle tomorrow, April 23, 2016 at The Forum, in Inglewood, CA, set to be broadcast live on HBO World Championship Boxing beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/ 7:00 p.m. PT, a familiar theme of opportunity raised it’s head. It is no secret that Golovkin wanted to get first crack at superstar Canelo Alvarez (46-1-1, 32KOs) after Alvarez beat Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33KOs) to win the WBC World Middleweight Title. However as the politics of the sport will go, Canelo and his promoter Golden Boy Promotions, headed by Oscar De La Hoya, decided to take on England’s Amir Khan (31-3, 19KOs) instead as their next big battle, scheduled to happen a mere two weekends from now on May 7, 2016, Cinco De Maio weekend.
While Amir Khan is a very dangerous opponent, there are known vulnerabilities to exploit. Khan’s less than rock solid chin has been a factor in past fights, and the move up in weight for Khan should be another advantage for Canelo. Considering these factors, Khan was likely the better bet on paper when compared to the unknown threat that Golovkin’s vaunted KO abilities pose that have yet to be tested against cream of the crop bankable A list opponents like Canelo, Miguel Cotto or the recently retired Floyd Mayweather (49-0, 26KOs). So once again, Golovkin is left a bit out in the cold, fighting someone who is undefeated but still less than substantive when it comes to that highly definable real deal versus real deal fight fever that turns it’s participants into undisputedly iconic material.
Rather than bemoan their situation too much, team Gennady, while pointing out that Wade is their mandatory to keep a hold of GGG’s impressive coterie of belts, namely the WBA Super World Middleweight Title, the IBF World Middleweight Title, the interim WBC World Middleweight Title and the International Boxing Organization World Middleweight Title, chose to see the irony of the situation by drawing similarities between Wade now and Gennady Golovkin in 2011 when he got the career boost of fighting Kassim Ouma (28-9-1, 17KOs) for the WBA World Middelweight title : “Dominic is in the same place where Gennady was five, six years ago,” said Golovkin’s longtime K2 promoter, Tom Loeffler, adding, “If he had the opportunity to fight one of the top fighters and show that he was the best in the division, that’s all that he was hoping for.”
Hopefully Dominic does prove to be worthy or at least competitive against Golovkin, as this is rhetoric that we have heard from team GGG before – specifically when it came to GGG’s fight against the then undefeated Willie Monroe Jr. (19-2, 6KOs), which also took place at The Forum. However, if tomorrow night does prove to be another unmitigated blow out for Golovkin, at the very least it should be another hole in any argument that the winner of Canelo vs. Khan would attempt to cobble together in order to further delay the “Good Boy” from Kazakhstan finally participating in his true big drama show.
See pictures from both the final press conference and the weigh in here:
