Cotto stops Geale

By Boxing News - 06/06/2015 - Comments

cotto00000By Jim Dower: Fighting in front of 12,157 fans in attendance, WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) made short work of former IBF/WBA middleweight champion Daniel Geale (31-4, 16 KOs) in stopping him in the 4th round on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Cotto dropped Geale twice in the 4th with big hooks to the head. After Geale went down for the second time, he told referee Harvey Dock that he’d had enough. The fight was then stopped at 1:27 of the round.

Geale never really recovered from the first knockdown. He tried to scurry away along the ropes, but Cotto was able to corner him and nail him with a hard head shot that put Geale down hard on the canvas. Geale was clearly really hurt after he got back up to his feet. The shot knocked Geale straight on his back after connecting to his chin.

What was disappointing about this fight was how Geale quit after he was hurt after the 2nd knockdown. That was the same thing that Geale did in the Gennady Golovkin fight. You don’t like to see fighters quit so quickly like that as soon as they get buzzed because it tells you that they’re not willing to try and battle through adversity. If a fighter quits once then they’ll often find it easier to quit the second time.

In beating Geale, Cotto is now in line to face Saul “Canelo” Alvarez next in the fall. Cotto wasn’t willing to say what he was going to do next after the fight. He said he wants to spend some time with his family before making his decision.

Geale came into the fight weighing over 182 pounds, but the weight wasn’t a factor because he didn’t have the punching power to go with it. Geale did land some shots, but his punches didn’t have the impact on them that Cotto’s did.

For comparison’s sake, Cotto’s knockout win wasn’t quite as fast as WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s 3rd round KO of Geale last year. Golovkin had Geale on the run from the 1st round, and there was no back and forth exchanges. It was pure chase with Golovkin chasing Golovkin from one side of the ring to the other. Cotto didn’t show the same kind of punching power that Golovkin showed in his fight against Geale, but it was still more than enough power to get Geale out of there.

In hindsight, Geale should have stayed on the move for longer and used his jab the way that Austin Trout did in his win over Cotto in 2012. Cotto doesn’t look any different than he was back in 2012. The only difference is he’s not fighting guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Trout, both of which beat Cotto in 2012. In Cotto’s last three fights, he’s beaten ESPN fighter Delvin Rodriguez, an injured Sergio Martinez and a light hitting Geale.

Other boxing results on the card:

Zhang Zillei UD 4 Glen Thomas
Junior Younan TKO 2 Mike Sawyer
Angel Luna UD 6 Jose Lopez
Shawn Simpson TKO 4 Damon Simon



Comments are closed.