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11/22/2024 04:31:15 am

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Boxing News & Rumors: Andre Ward No Longer In Gennady Golovkin's Plans?

Andre Ward (L) vs Paul Smith

(Photo : Getty Images) Andre Ward defeats Paul Smith via a 9th round TKO on June 20 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.

According to his promoter Tom Loeffler, reigning WBA (Super) and IBO middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) had never been interested in fighting current WBA (Super) and Lineal super middleweight titlist Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs).

Boxing News 24 reported that Loeffler said "the only reason" why there were rumors of a potential fight between the two men were reporters who kept on asking when are they going to fight one another. Each fighter fielded their answers correspondingly, which created a bit of a media stir because of the insinuations.

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More than two months ago, the two boxers had heated exchanges in public regarding their opinions of a possible clash against one another. Ward was said to be telling media that Golovkin had been making excuses not to fight him. Speculations of a fight escalated when GGG had said to stop mentioning his name in building up a fight and that "as a man" Ward is "dead" to him.

The talks quieted down earlier this month when it was announced that Golovkin will fight IBF middleweight champ David Lemieux for a unification bout on October 17 at the Madison Square Garden.

And now, Loeffler was telling everyone that his client never wanted to fight the 31-year-old American in the first place.

However, Tha Boxing Voice's James Allen suggested that after Golovkin is done with Lemieux, the speculations will press on.

Allen even said that only Ward's "mugging, technical style" can pose the greatest "threat" to the hard-punching Kazakh warrior. He added that Lemieux may have the "power", but he does not have the skill and endurance that GGG has.

While a Ward-Golovkin fight may ultimately happen in the future, the chances of it taking place this year or even next year are close to slim or none.

Boxing Scene indicated that Golovkin's camp is planning to unify all the belts in the middleweight division first before moving up or down into a different weight class.

In fact, it is more likely that GGG will go down to super welterweight to face pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. than go up to super middleweight and fight Ward.

Golovkin himself had expressed his desire to face Mayweather and called their hypothetical matchup as the "biggest fight in the world."

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