By: Hans Themistode
Demetrius Andrade is quite frankly sick and tired and of talking about it. The former two-division world champion and current WBO middleweight belt holder has been heavily criticized for the opponents he’s stepped into the ring against. His upcoming title defense against British native Liam Williams isn’t helping matters either.
The two are slated to face off this coming Saturday on April 17th, at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood Florida.
Andrade, 33, has screamed until he’s blue in the face in the direction of the bigger names in the boxing world. Yet, no matter how hard he tries, no one of note has taken him up on his offer to face him in the ring. The ongoing theme surrounding Andrade’s career is that he’s simply too high risk for such little reward.
In his mind, however, that makes absolutely no sense.
“How is that realistic to say,” said Andrade during a recent interview with Manouk Akopyan. “How do you have nothing to gain when you’re fighting a world champion?”
Just as Andrade mentions, he believes his championship status should allow certain fighters to become more enticed with fighting him. While he’s willing to face many of the big names in or around his division, Andrade has placed a certain emphasis on IBF middleweight titlist Gennadiy Golovkin and unified super middleweight champion, Canelo Alvarez.
Although both have heard Andrade express an interest in fighting them, neither appear to be in a rush to accept his challenge. Instead, both Alvarez and Golovkin continue to place their attention elsewhere.
When glancing at the resume of both champions, Andrade can’t help but laugh when he reads off some of the names that have gotten the opportunity he’s been craving. With world titles in two separate weight classes and a dozen years as an unbeaten pro, Andrade simply doesn’t understand how certain fighters got their chance to face them while he continues to wait.
“You’re willing to fight (Kamil) Szeremeta, you’re willing to fight (Avni) Yildirim, you’re willing to fight Rocky Fielding. You’re looking to fight all of these other people, like what do they have that I don’t have? That talk is just excuses.”
In the case of Golovkin, he annihilated Szeremeta via seventh-round stoppage this past December. Alvarez, on the other hand, made it look easy against mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim on February 27th, earlier this year, stopping him in the third.
Following those aforementioned wins, neither Alvarez nor Golovkin mentioned Andrade as a possible opponent. Alvarez is currently in the midst of training camp as he prepares to take on WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. In the case of Golovkin, his next fight hasn’t been revealed as of yet but he is reportedly interested in a showdown with middleweight contender Jaime Munguia.
Regardless of both men continuing to go in another direction, Andrade claims that his focus is on his own career and his upcoming title defense against Williams.
“I’m going to put an ass whopping on Liam Williams, come April 17th.”