By Raj Parmar: It’s been almost a month now since the long anticipated Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao saga finally concluded, and the attention of the boxing world is now starting to turn its attention towards one of the sport’s most cherished prizes: the middleweight championship.
WBC middleweight titleholder Miguel Cotto will be putting his belt on the line against challenger Daniel Geale in what will be his first defense after dethroning Sergio Martinez last year. The talk however has not mainly been focused on Geale, but the other contenders to Cotto’s claim as the middleweight king.
Knockout artist Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin currently holds the interim WBC title and has been aching for his chance at the popular Cotto for some time now. GGG is rising in popularity as he has KO’d twenty opponents in a row however he is seeking a signature win against a famous name to really put himself on the map.
Many predict GGG will be easily able to walk through the smaller Cotto and in the process make himself a household name. Miguel’s former promoter Bob Arum has even come out and said there is no way he would personally match Cotto with Golovkin as Miguel would stand no chance to deal with GGG’s power and aggression.
Many have assumed that if the WBC pressures Miguel to fight GGG, Cotto will simply vacate the WBC title and head south to junior middleweight. A wild card has however come up that may assist Miguel in his predicament, and that wild card is Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Canelo knocked out James Kirkland in extravagant fashion a week after the world was for the most part disgusted with the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, and the WBC organization knows how big a Cotto-Canelo event would be and the prestige it would bring to their middleweight title.
The WBC has even stated that it is open to allowing Cotto to take on Canelo before forcing the winner to fight GGG, while earlier the WBC was very strict on Cotto fighting GGG sooner rather than later. Cotto vs Canelo is undoubtedly the bigger drawing fight at the moment that also plays on boxing’s famed Mexican-Puerto Rican rivalry.
Should Cotto get past Geale and set up a big money showdown with Canelo, the winner should be aware that he is setting himself up for a high pressure situation as he will be clamored by the public to step in the ring with GGG or be labeled a coward.
So when Cotto and Canelo sign the dotted line to face each other, they better have a plan on dealing with GGG in the ring as they will face public wrath the same way Mayweather did before he fought Manny if they choose to vacate the title and avoid GGG.
Follow @boxingdetective on twitter for more boxing articles by Raj Parmar
Comments are closed.