By Dan Ambrose: Millions will be at stake tonight when WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) gets in the ring with the bigger and some would say weight drained Daniel Geale (31-3, 16 KOs) in their crucial bout on HBO Championship Boxing from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
It’s an important fight for both guys because both of them stand to make a ton of money if they win. For Cotto, he’s got a big money date against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez waiting for him in the fall on HBO PPV if he wins tonight against Geale.
Cotto has to win because if he loses the fight, he’ll pretty much have to face Geale again in order to convince boxing fans to let loose some of their hard-earned cash to pay to see him fight the 24-year-old Canelo Alvarez. If Cotto gets stubborn about it and chooses to face Canelo off the back of a loss to Geale, he’ll wind up making a lot less money because boxing fans for some reason won’t like the idea of paying to see someone on PPV after he was beaten in his last fight.
The fight is important for Geale because if he beats Cotto, he’ll likely get an immediate rematch with a better purse split the second time around. Geale obviously would like to get that second payday against Cotto, and he also wants to add Cotto’s scalp to his collection of wins. A win for Geale keeps his career moving forward, and could lead to other big fights in the near future.
The Cotto-Geale fight saw both fighters coming in under the 157 pound catch-weight during Friday’s weigh-in. Cotto weighed in at 153.6.bs and Geale came in right at the 157lb limit. By the time the two of them enter the ring tonight, Cotto will likely be in the low 160s, whereas Geale will be 170-175. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach has made a big deal about Geale possibly coming into the fight at 175. But even if this does turn out to be true, Cotto won’t be far behind at the mid-160s. The difference in weight won’t be a big deal.
“When you’re the name you call the shots,” trainer Robert Garcia said about Cotto’s catch-weight to Figththype.com. “Cotto has done it. Pacquiao has done it. Mayweather has done it, you know. Those are the guys that could do it, the big names. The names that the opponent does it because he wants the fight. That big name, that big fight, that big payday. So they have to. I could say it’s not supposed to happen, but you know they do call the shots,” Garcia said.
Geale didn’t look good yesterday during the weigh-in. He had the look of someone who took too much weight off. We’ll have to see tonight whether the process of making Cotto’s catch-weight will hurt him in this fight. Cotto must have been worried about Geale for him to request that he came in so low with his 157lb catch-weight. If Cotto was confident in himself, he wouldn’t have asked for a catch-weight and would have just taken the fight at the normal 160lb limit for the middleweight division.
Cotto is nearing the end of his career so you have to let him have these kinds of advantages. He didn’t have them earlier in his career, and now it’s something that comes with the territory. But it’s not going to be enough for Cotto if he ever gets in the ring with someone like Gennady Golovkin. Cotto will need more than just a catch-weight for him to get the legitimate middleweight champion.
Cotto is going to need some skills. He can drain Golovkin down to 154, and it’s still not likely to go well for Cotto. About the only thing I could see helping Cotto against Golovkin is if he told him that the fight must take place at junior middleweight, and then he implemented a drastic catch-weight of something along the lines of 148bs. I’m not sure if Cotto himself can make 148, but it’s one way of draining Golovkin enough to where Cotto might have a chance of winning.
“Mayweather, he calls the shots not only with his opponents but with the commission, judges, refs, everything, he calls the shots,” Garcia said.
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