(Photo credit: Will Hart/HBO) By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KOs) has a lot on the line tonight in his fight against Daniel Geale (30-2, 16 KO’s). There’s a potential huge pay-per-view fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) that could take place next December on HBO if Golovkin looks good in dealing with the Australian Geale.
Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach will be at tonight’s fight at MSG, getting a good look at Golovkin first hand to decide whether he’s good enough to put in the ring with Cotto. Roach has a lot of sway over Cotto, and it’s quite possible he could talk him into facing Golovkin next if Roach likes what he sees of him. Roach can also talk Cotto out of talking the fight if he feels that he’s all wrong for him.
The sad reality is that the only way Roach is going to give Cotto the green light to fight Golovkin is if he senses weakness that he thinks he can train Cotto to exploit. Roach was the one that scouted out 39-year-old Sergio Martinez and targeted him for Cotto when Martinez was literally on his last leg.
Now Roach is going to try and do the same thing with Golovkin, except with him he’s probably going to come away from the fight tonight with bad news for Cotto. Roach probably won’t enough weakness in Golovkin for him to see it as a fight that’s a winnable one for Cotto to take. Roach doesn’t want Cotto to be beaten because he wants him to still face Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and fight Floyd Mayweather Jr in a rematch, because those are big money fights for Cotto to take.
Cotto has to fight somebody in December, and it’s obviously not going to be Canelo or Mayweather, because Canelo is definitely not ready for a Cotto fight after looking as bad as he did in his controversial/gift decision win over Erislandy Lara this month. Mayweather already has a fight scheduled against Marcos Maidana on September 13th, so he’s not a possibility.
Depending on who Cotto winds up facing in December, it’s going to tell us everything about what Roach’s faith in him is. If he believes in Cotto, then he’ll be facing Golovkin. But if he sees Cotto as a paper champion at middleweight, then Roach will have him fighting someone flawed and easy to beat like James Kirkland, David Lemieux, Marco Antonio Rubio or Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam.
I don’t see Roach letting Cotto get 1000 miles from Golovkin. Roach is too safety first with the fights he likes for his fighters. There’s no way he’s going to put Cotto in a fight he can’t win against Golovkin. Just look at the guys that Cotto has fought while under Roach’s helm/guidance: Sergio Martinez and Delvin Rodriguez.
Comments are closed.