Will Cotto vacate his WBC title if forced to fight Golovkin?

By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) will be facing WBC interim middleweight champion Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1, 51 KOs) on October 18th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

With Rubio’s WBC interim 160 pound title on the line for the fight in addition to Golovkin’s WBA title, we could in theory see a situation where Golovin could become Cotto’s WBC mandatory if he beats Rubio.

The question then would be will Cotto vacate his WBC title if the World Boxing Council forces him to defend it against Golovkin? Cotto’s next fight on December 13th will be an optional title defense against likely Andy Lee. Cotto’s fight after that on Cinco de Mayo next year will be another optional title defense against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

If Cotto is still the WBC middleweight champion after those two fights, he’ll be required to defend against his WBC mandatory challenger, which in this case will be Golovkin unless Cotto vacates or gets permission by the WBC to fight a unification bout against one of the other middleweight champions like Sam Soliman or Peter Quillin.

Normally, you wouldn’t think Cotto would bother to face either of those guys, but given the choice of facing Golovkin or Quillin/Soliman, I can definitely see Cotto going in towards the path of least resistance.

Cotto will look really, really bad if he ducks a fight against Golovkin to move back down to 154 to continue campaigning as a light middleweight. Cotto basically walks around at the same weight at Golovkin, who weighs under 170 for his fights at middleweight. Cotto can’t use the size excuse for him not fighting Golovkin, because they weigh the same pretty much.

The way that Cotto won the WBC middleweight title – by targeting 39-year-old Sergio Martinez with him coming off of 2 knee surgeries, a 14 month layoff, and a poor performance against Martin Murray – makes him look bad enough as it is. You’ve got Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach saying that Sergio Martinez was in the prime of his career when Cotto fought him rather than being over the hill, which is pretty much everyone believes.