Gennady Golovkin Faces Mandatory Challenger Dominic Wade - Preview & Prediction

When: April 23rd, 2016

Where: The Forum, Inglewood, CA

In what will be Gennady "GGG" Golovkin's (34-0, 31KO's) tune-up match before the much anticipated showdown with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, GGG will take on mandatory challenger Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KO's) for Golovkin's Middleweight titles. 

This will be Golovkin's 15th title defense, only five behind the all-time leader Bernard Hopkins who had 20 middleweight title defenses.

Wade is an up-and-coming fighter but has not had any noteworthy opponents since becoming a pro in 2009. For a little local connection to the 25-year-old challenger out of Washington, D.C., his last two fights have taken place at the Little Creek Casino in Shelton, WA most recently earning a split decision victory against an over-the-hill former champion Sam Soliman. A lot of commotion has come up due to the fact that nobody see's Wade as a true threat to Golovkin (#2 Pound-4-Pound fighter according to ESPN) but if Golovkin passed on fighting Wade he would have been stripped of his IBF Belt since Wade is the mandatory challenger.

With Golovkin's mantra being #AllTheBelts he wasn't just going to let the IBF committee strip him of his championship belt that easy, regardless of how steep of a dip in competition his challenger may be.

Golovkin was scheduled to make his mandatory defense against the IBF's #1 middleweight contender, Tureano Johnson (19-1, 13KO's), but Johnson suffered a shoulder injury while training.

Maybe the best thing to come out of this card will be that the Pound-for-Pound champion Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez (44-0, 38 KO's) will be on the undercard, as has been the case for the previous two fights Golovkin has headlined. Expect Chocolatito to live up to his hyped expectations yet again with another impressive outing when he defends his WBC Flyweight belt against challenger McWilliams Arroyo (16-2, 14 KO's). 

As long as Golovkin and Gonzalez, who have a combined record of (78-0, 69 KO's) continue to work on the same cards expect for great fireworks to take place in the ring. 

Golovkin should be able to dispel Wade early and get us one step closer to the unifying of the middleweight belts against Canelo, so long as they both win their next fight. The only real question about Golovkin vs Wade is how much of a beating will Wade be able to withstand.

Prediction: Golovkin wins via KO in Round 4 

I don't expect this fight to go the full 12 rounds. Wade will have a tough time keeping Golovkin's power off him and after watching a couple of Wade's previous fights I don't believe he will have what it takes to last any longer than the 4th round, not to mention this will be Wade's first fight in 10 months. After a win vs Wade, Gennady's next target will turn to one of the biggest names in boxing today, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez for a unification bout for their middleweight championships.