Golovkin will need to wait on Cotto fight

By Boxing News - 08/04/2014 - Comments

golovkin994By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) is going to need to stay busy for his next fight this year in October or November, because the fighter that he wants, WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs), is being mentioned as possibly fighting #8 WBO Andy Lee on December 13th instead of Cotto.

Freddie Roach, the trainer for Cotto, wants the Golovkin fight because he sees him as beatable at catch-weight of 155, but the fight is going to need to wait for a little while longer because Cotto has a big money match-up against popular Mexican mega-star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for early 2015 if Cotto’s promoters at Top Rank and Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions can iron out a deal between them.

Cotto defeated WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez last June in a 10 round wipeout at Madison Square Garden in New York in front of Cotto’s fans. After the fight, fans immediately started calling for a unification fight between Cotto and Golovkin, because they wanted to see them go at it in a fight that would be hugely popular. But Cotto has a bigger fight ahead of him in 24-year-old Canelo, and taking a risky bout against Golovkin, who is arguably a far more dangerous fighter than Canelo could potentially ruin things by Cotto getting knocked out by Golovkin.

Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya said he wouldn’t care if Cotto got beaten. He’d still go ahead and match Canelo up against him. But a loss for Cotto against Golovkin would hurt the pay-per-view sales in a huge way for a Cotto-Canelo fight.

To be sure, Cotto would gain a great deal if he were to show the courage to face Golovkin and somehow beat him, because he’d gain a lot of status from a win over him that would make his fight against Canelo that much bigger. But it doesn’t appear that Cotto is willing to take that risk because Golovkin looks to be the real thing at 160, whereas Cotto is perceived by many boxing fans to be little more than an aging 33-year-old fighter who took advantage an over-the-hill champion in Sergio Martinez at the end of his career.

After Cotto gets done with his fight against Canelo and possibly rematches against Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr, he’ll likely take on Golovkin. Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr might also figure in the equation as well. If a fight between him and Cotto can get made, then Golovkin will need to wait in line behind him as well.



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