By Dan Ambrose: With Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather Jr both busy with scheduled fights, Tom Loeffler, the promoter for WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs), wants to setup a fight if possible between Golovkin and WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) Loeffler doesn’t want to have to wait until later this year for the Golovkin-Cotto fight. He wants it now.
“Canelo and Floyd are busy; no bigger fight now for Cotto than unification with GGGboxing to see who the real middleweight champ is,” Loeffler said on his twitter.
I don’t know if Cotto has the same goals as Loeffler has. Cotto defeated a past his past 39-year-old Sergio Martinez to pick up the WBC middleweight title last year in June, but I don’t think Cotto sees himself as a real middleweight.
Cotto is more of an opportunist in that he was matched against Sergio Martinez at the perfect time in order for him to beat him. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach picked the ideal time in matching Cotto against Sergio Martinez to pick up his WBC strap.
If Roach and Cotto’s adviser Gaby Penagaricano had made that fight four years earlier or even two years earlier when Martinez still had something left in the tank, we’d likely have seen Martinez pulverize Cotto in the same way that Antonio Margarito did in his first fight against Cotto in 2008. But in picking the right time to make a fight against him, Cotto was able to pick up the strap the easy way.
If Cotto were to hang around for another five years until he’s 39, I’m sure there would guys that would dismantle him in a similar way to take his WBC strap from him. But the World Boxing Council isn’t going to let Cotto milk his WBC 160 pound title. They’re going to force him to fight Golovkin later this year after Cotto has an optional defense first in May or June.
It would be a great fight if Cotto agrees to fight Golovkin in a unification match, because it would give Cotto a nice payday at the same time it would show that he has a lot of courage. Instead of vacating his WBC title, like many boxing fans expect Cotto to do, he could show some bravery by fighting the guy that fans see as the best fighter in the division in Golovkin.
Even if Cotto gets totally torn apart by Golovkin, he’d still win a lot of respect from fans for having agreed to fight him in the first place. It would be a noble act by Cotto, because he would be passing the baton from the old generation to the younger generation.
By beating Cotto and adding his scalp to his collection, Golovkin would be taking a huge step forward in becoming a pay-per-view attraction. I still think Golovkin would need a victory over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and/or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez before he officially became a big pay-per-view star in his own right, but beating Cotto to a pulp would be a good head start for Golovkin.
A win against Cotto might help Golovkin get Canelo. Then again, it might keep him from getting a fight against Canelo, because Golden Boy Promotions might get scared off if Golovkin does a number on Cotto.
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