By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) plans on keeping his WBC 160lb title after his next defense against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) in November rather than vacating it to avoid his No.1 WBC mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs), according to Roc Nation Sports COO David Iskowitch.
He told Fight News that they will look to make sure Cotto keeps his WBC title after the Canelo fight. Just what that means is unclear. Cotto was supposed to be fighting Golovkin next, but both the WBC and Golovkin agreed to let the Cotto-Canelo fight take place as long as Golovkin gets the next shot at the title.
It would be troubling if Cotto were able to defend his WBC title again without facing Golovkin if he somehow gets past Canelo with his WBC title still in his possession.
“We’re going to what we can to make sure that he gets to keep that title and if a Canelo fight is made, which is everybody’s goal, we would like that fight to be for the title,” Itskowitch said to Fightnews.com.
As far as I can tell, the only way Cotto can keep the WBC 160 pound title beyond the Canelo fight is for him to defend it against Golovkin. It would be great if Cotto did choose to fight Golovkin because there really won’t be any other big fights for him unless Canelo is given an immediate rematch. But even for that to happen, the WBC would have to give Cotto permission to do that.
With the tremendous amount of money the Cotto-Canelo fight is expected to make on HBO pay-per-view in November, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the World Boxing Council gives Cotto permission a second time to face Canelo rather than Golovkin. It would be nice if the WBC were to step in at that point and say that Cotto can only fight Canelo again if Cotto fights Golovkin first before that, but I doubt that the WBC title do that.
If the Cotto-Canelo fight brings in well over 2 million pay-per-view buys on HBO, which is entirely possible, I see the WBC giving Cotto the green light to face Canelo immediately. Of course, there would be a step aside feel given to Golovkin for him to let the second Cotto vs. Canelo fight to take place, but he’d very likely have to wait until late 2016 before he’d be given a shot at the WBC title.
There will clearly be a catch-weight for the Cotto-Canelo fight, but it won’t matter in this case because both fighters seem to prefer to fight at catch-weights at this point in their careers. However, there won’t be any advantages with this catch-weight for either guy because neither of them see themselves as middleweights in size, even though you can make a strong argument that the 175 pound Canelo is clearly a middleweight, albeit a short middleweight, but a middleweight none the less. It would be Cotto’s best interest to make the catch-weight as low as possible if he wants to gain a slight advantage. The more weight that Canelo has to put back on the better it is for Cotto. Therefore, a catch-weight of 155lbs would be ideal for Cotto. Anything over that would help the hulking Canelo.
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