By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: There is a high demand for newly crowned WBC middleweight champ Miguel Cotto to fight fellow champ middleweight champ Gennady Golovikin (GGG). For starters, Cotto doesn’t owe GGG a fight. And this is no knock on GGG.
Cotto has been through numerous wars, built himself into the third highest pay per view attraction in North America, and most importantly, he’s paid his dues. He’s won titles in four different weight classes with his forth coming against Sergio Martinez. Beating Martinez gave Cotto the breakthrough he had been searching for. He tried twice against Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio and came up short. But now he’s “the man”. He’s calling the shots.
The GGG fight is something Cotto would probably take if he was coming up through the ranks and looking to make a name for himself. In fact, Cotto is being asked to do what Martinez should’ve done; and that’s fight GGG. So essentially, Cotto is cleaning up Sergio’s mess. Plus unifications are not mandated. They are agreed upon.
The WBC is making an effort to get Cotto to defend his title at middleweight. The winner of the GGG/Marco Antonio Rubio becomes the mandatory challenger to Cotto’s belt. But that won’t matter because Cotto is bigger than a belt. He would sooner vacate and set up a match that is to his liking. Many believe Cotto took advantage of Martinez’s condition. I don’t think injuries played a major factor. For one, Martinez thought he could take advantage of Cotto’s size the fact that he had never been a middleweight. I support my statement with this fact.
Cotto tipped the scale at 155 before the fight. Usually a fighter would test the waters at the division they want to fight against decent competition to see what adjustments they need to make in their speed, stamina conditioning etc. Cotto didn’t do that. GGG was already a middleweight having been fighting there his entire career. Yes, Martinez did take on Paul Williams (twice), Darren Barker, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, but none of those fighters had the precision in placing punches, the power, and the ability to cut the ring off the way GGG does.
To further drive my point home, Di Bella told ESPN on July 1, 2013, after seeing GGG beat Macklin that he wouldn’t put Martinez in the ring with GGG even if he was healthy and ready to go. But Dibella promised GGG a fight should he beat Macklin. Sergio was recovering from knee surgery. Also the WBC made no effort to make Sergio fight GGG the way they are doing to Cotto. Coming back to my original point; Cotto won’t fight GGG. Cotto is a small middleweight. I thought he was actually kind of small at jr middleweight.
Trainer Freddie Roach told the Latin Post on August 2nd of this year that if the fight did happen it would have to happen as close to 154 as possible. I follow Roaches statement up with this. That statement did not make it to a contract or initial offer from the Cotto’s camp to GGG’s. I believe Cotto’s people know that GGG would more than likely jump all over the opportunity so why play with that fire.
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