Light heavyweight contender Andre Ward (29-0) just came off an easy 12 round unanimous decision over Sullivan Barrera (17-1) last Saturday at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. Undefeated Ward feels it should’ve been Gennady Golovkin instead; only if GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez would send him.
Light heavyweight contender Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) says that IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez sent his fighter Sullivan Barrera (17-1, 12 KOs) to face him rather than sending in Golovkin last Saturday night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, Ward thinks that Barrera was sent in to test the waters for Golovkin to see it was safe first.
Sanchez initially praised Ward for beating Barrera, but when asked about GGG or IBF/WBA/WBO Light heavyweight Champ Seregey “Krusher”Kovalev, the trainer sang a different tune, one that wasn’t completely untrue:
“This is a student [Ward]. We’re trying to match him against the teacher Kovalev, Golovkin. This is an impossible task. He [Ward] didn’t look like he could handle those guys today. He was able to handle a young man with 17 fights, but it’s a different story moving up to the elite guys.”
Not appreciating Sanchez’s back-peddling when asked about the better fighters, feeling GGG’s trainer was not giving him the respect he deserves. While Sanchez might be stating ‘facts’ and not trying to put his fighters on a pedestal, Ward feels that Sanchez is just trying to stick up for his fighters out of pride, further claiming that Sanchez was ‘testing the waters’ by sending in weaker of his students, Barrera.
“He [Sanchez] wanted to test the waters. He didn’t want to give his boy [Golovkin]. He wanted to give me Barrera,” said Ward. “He didn’t want to give me Golovkin. That’s okay.”
Although it is not in Sanchez’s hands to set fights up, since he is not a promoter or match-maker but a trainer. In this case it is each fighter’s respective promoters who get to pair them against each other and never the trainers. Hence Wards accusation against Sanchez are completely unfounded.
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Upon Floyd Mayweather telling GGG to call Ward out before he could even think of fighting ‘Money’, Ward had to say this:
“He’s right. You can’t call out a welterweight, man. You don’t get any stripes for that. Not even me, but some other legitimate super middleweights. You want Floyd to come up; somebody that’s done everything in the sport that doesn’t have to life another finger in the sport to prove anything, and yet you wouldn’t go up to fight at that time when I was still a super middleweight, the best super middleweight that’s out there after doing all that talking. You want to pick on me, and get a payday. Come on, man. It’s that high altitude, man,” said Ward.
GGG CAN fight Mayweather though. The two are on similar sides of the welterweight – middleweight spectrum while Ward is more toward middleweight – light heavyweight. It just doesn’t make sense for GGG and Ward to be fighting in anyway.
