By Dan Ambrose: The much talked about mega-fight between the stars of the 154lb and 160lb divisions WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is close to being done. According to Lance Pugmire, the fight could be done by as early as next week. That would be a big deal because the fight is the biggest thing on the horizon for the sport right now.
Dan Rafael expects that it could bring in as many as 1 million pay-per-view buys on HBO, but not more than that. I agree with Rafael. I think it’s a good fight, but it’s not going to be a monster fight because neither guy has established himself to be a PPV star when headlining a fight. They both needed Floyd Mayweather Jr. to bring in big PPV numbers.
“The @Canelo @RealMiguelCotto fight could get done next week, @OscarDeLaHoya said. Nov. 7 or 21 at @MGMGrand or @ThomasAndMack barring upset,” Pugmire said on his Twitter.
The things that still need to be agreed upon is the date of the fight, and the venue. They seem to have narrowed it down to Las Vegas at either the MGM Grand or the Thomas and Mack center. Canelo was soundly beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand in Vegas in September 2013, so it’s unclear if he’ll want to go back there again after the total domination he experienced in that fight.
The Thomas and Mack Center has a larger seating capacity at 19,522 compared to 16,800. But the expanded MGM Grand is expected to have over 20,000 seats, so that could be the better venue if Cotto and Canelo want to get as many fans to see it as possible. It’s likely that they’ll be able to sell out the venue. It was a shock if they couldn’t sell it out.
Cotto and Canelo have already agreed to fight at a catch-weight of 155lbs. With the tough guy reps that both fighters have, it’s hard to understand why this preoccupation with fighting at catch-weights. It seems to run counter with their tough guy images because a lot of boxing fans see fighters that use catch-weights as being afraid to fight at the full weight in whatever weight class they’re moving up to.
That’s why guys like Mayweather are good for the sport because he doesn’t believe in using catch-weights for his fights. When he fought Cotto in 2012, Mayweather was willing to move up to 154 to beat him. Why Cotto and Canelo feel they need catch-weight handicaps is beyond me. Some boxing fans see them both as prima donnas. Canelo is only 24, and you have to worry that he’ll throw his negotiating muscle around in the future when he becomes the No.1 star in the sport after Mayweather, Cotto and Pacquiao all retire, and Golovkin ages to the point where he’s a shot fighter.
It’s going to be interesting to see how well Cotto does in this fight against Canelo, because Cotto hasn’t fought a good fighter since his loss to Austin Trout in 2012. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach brags about having rebuilt him, but all we’ve seen is Cotto beating up on shot or injured guys in Sergio Martinez, Daniel Geale and Delvin Rodriguez in the last couple of years.
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