In a fair fight with an honest referee Golovkin would KO Andre Ward

[powerpuncher]

In addition the Kessler fight is a little deceiving. I doubt very much that a boxer like Ward intentionally uses his head. The risk in that intent is just as high for the giver as it is the receiver unless the giver has a frontal skull like Vassiliy Jirov. Kessler gets clipped standing still because he's trying to set to throw a punch and Ward is operating on the fly and doing a fair amount of switch hitting. Wards head is in front of his body at times but I dont see him "using" it.

"Let's be honest here, Ward came in like a billygoat" - Al Bernstein

Excessive holding? Again I just dont see it. I mean consider where the BAR is for that. The heavyweight champion of the world fights like a set of living room drapes and to my knowledge has never been warned.

(Video) Ward-Kessler: The Clinches

How many times do I have to say that there is no rule against clinching. And in that video, ward wasn't holding and hitting. That is the problem. Tons of fighters throughout history clinch a lot. Some styles just lends itself to clinching. When you jump in, the natural thing to do is clinch. The other fighter can avoid it by moving to the side and countering. If you can't do that then too bad. It means you got outboxed.

There is a rule against clinching

In fact clinching is very much against the rules

Unless of course you're gonna nit pick as it's not actually ever referred to as "clinching" in the rules as far as I know

P.s. I'm not in any way suggesting that ward holds with this post I'm just clarifying the rules

If you can find the rule that's fine. I just can't see how clinching is against the rules since its unintentional a lot of the time. Maybe intentional clinching is against the rule but as you said, it's an unwritten rule that it's allowed to happen. So even if it were against the rules technically, I would say that most fighters would be DQ'd because they clinch multiple times during a fight