By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s trainer/manager Eddy Reynoso says that Canelo wants to capture Miguel Cotto’s WBC middleweight title. He wants that belt. He doesn’t care if the fight takes place at a catch-weight of 155lbs, as long as he can get a shot at Cotto’s 160 pound title.
Canelo will be fighting in December and not November, because they want to limit the amount of time that he sits idle while waiting for the fight against Cotto next May. If Canelo fights in December, he’ll then only need to wait 5 months for the Cotto fight.
“We will be meeting (Saul and his team) the last weeks of August or in September to define what follows, which is a fact we will fight in December and not November,” said Reynoso to Univsion. “We won’t have much idle time. If we fight in November, Saul would have much longer dormant until May. Instead, fighting in December would have only two or three weeks of holiday break and enter filled the gym in January.”
It seems that Canelo is going to look to challenge Floyd Mayweather Jr for the Cinco de Mayo holiday next year on May 2nd. If Mayweather goes ahead and fights on that date then the Cotto-Canelo fight will be lucky if it brings in more than the Canelo vs. Alfredo Angulo fight did in bringing in just 350,000 pay-per-view buys. Boxing fans aren’t going to be able to afford to see two expensive pay-per-view fights on the same night on Cinco de Mayo.
“It seems that everything is working out for May,” Reynoso said about a Canelo-Cotto fight. “We want to fight Cotto and we want the scepter of the World Boxing Council and he has.”
Canelo fighting Cotto for the WBC middleweight title at a catch-weight of 155 pounds would be troubling. It would lower the value of the title in the eyes of some boxing fans, because they would see it as little more than a catch-weight title held on the borderline of the junior middleweight division instead of at the full weight of middleweight.
The big question is what will Canelo do with the WBC middleweight title if he beats Cotto? Unless Canelo is interested in fighting WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in a unification match, Canelo would be seen by some fans as a paper champion the same way many fans see Cotto as a paper champion. It’s logical to assume that Golden Boy Promotions might look to match-up Canelo against WBO champion Peter Quillin in a unification match. But Golovkin will likely be avoided like the third rail, a fighter not to be touched.
Comments are closed.