Golovkin’s promoter still waiting for Cotto agreement

By Boxing News - 06/19/2015 - Comments

1-cotto (9)By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is still waiting on an agreement from WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto that the winner of his November fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will be fighting Golovkin in their next fight.

Thus far, Cotto and Canelo haven’t agreed to take the fight with Golovkin. But even if they do agree, it doesn’t mean that they can’t vacate the title.

Cotto and Canelo can always agree to fight Golovkin, but that doesn’t mean that they will. It’s an easy thing for the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight to simply vacate the WBC belt and go down to the catch-weight 155lb division, which Canelo has carved out recently for his fights.

It’s likely that Canelo and Cotto will agree to fight Golovkin, but will then choose to vacate the strap as soon as their fight is over with. It’s important that the Canelo-Cotto fight have the WBC 160lb title on the line, because it validates the fight, and gives meaning to it. It’s kind of silly though because the Canelo-Cotto fight will likely take place at a catch-weight of 155 pounds rather than the full weight for the division.

“Cotto can’t defend his title without an agreement in place to fight Gennady next,” said Loeffler via the LAtimes.com. “We can’t prevent that Cotto-Canelo fight from happening. But the winner has to agree to fight Gennady for the title to be at stake.”

WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman is monitoring the negotiations between Cotto and Canelo, and he’s hoping that he can get an agreement from them to face Golovkin next. But it’s unlikely that they’ll be swayed by anything that Sulaiman says to steer them towards a fight that they appear not to be too interested in.

When Cotto and Canelo are eager for a fight, such as when they faced the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the past, they didn’t need persuading to take the fight. But with Golovkin, it’s a much different story. He’s bigger, stronger and has one-punch power.

It means that a fight against Golovkin could end very badly for Canelo and Cotto, which is probably why they’re not rushing forward to agree to fight the Kazakhstan fighter. Losing by a knockout to Golovkin would do a lot of damage to Canelo and Cotto’s career. They would still be popular fighters after a loss to him, but obviously many fans would jump ship.

“We’re just waiting for the parties to sign off and notify us that’s the way they’re going to proceed,” Sulaiman said.



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