Lemieux: Cotto shouldn’t be fighting at middleweight, he’s scared

By Boxing News - 08/19/2015 - Comments

Image: Lemieux: Cotto shouldn’t be fighting at middleweight, he’s scaredBy Allan Fox: IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) sent a strong message to WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto on Tuesday, saying that he shouldn’t be fighting in the middleweight division if he’s too scared to fight at the full weight for the division.

Cotto has fought three times in the middleweight division since moving up in weight last year, and all three of his fights have been catch-weight fights under the full weight limit for the division. Cotto moved up in weight because he had a goal of winning a world title at middleweight.

Cotto accomplished that goal by beating Sergio Martinez for the WBC title last year at a catch-weight, but failed to take on the fighter that many boxing fans feel is the best fighter at middleweight in Gennady Golovkin.

“Cotto, he shouldn’t be fighting at middleweight,” Lemieux said via the nydailynews.com. “If you want to fight at middleweight, make 160. You’re a middleweight. Don’t be fighting at catch-weights. It’s middleweight. You want to be at 155,154 – you’re scared. But you want to have the status of a middleweight. You’re not a real middleweight. If you’re scared to fight at 160 and you want to have the status of a middleweight but you don’t want to make 160, then you shouldn’t be at middleweight.”

The sanctioning bodies are the ones that permit fighters like Cotto, Manny Pacquiao and many other fighters to fight at catch-weights rather than the full weight. They do this because of the potential for bigger fights that can take place. Without catch-weights, some fighters would be fearful of moving up or down in weight due to the potential of them getting pounded by a bigger or smaller fighter.

Where it becomes a problem is when a champion is using his status to get contenders to fight at lower catch-weight in order to gain an advantage. For example, if you’re s small champion holding down a middleweight title, you can in theory use your champion status to get your opponents to agree to fight you at 155 rather than the full weight of 160 for the division, and this in turn helps you beat them because they’re weakened from having to make weight.

Since the sanctioning bodies like the World Boxing Council are fine with this practice, a champion can get away with that and have a better chance of holding onto their title than they would if they had to fight contenders at the full weight.

You can also make an argument that it can help a champion take less punishment if he insists that his opponents fight at catch-weights, because this potentially would leave his opponents weaker and less able to generate the kind of power that they would normally have if they fought at the full weight for a division.

Cotto won’t be able to use his catch-weight against Gennady Golovkin if he gets past Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in their catch-weight fight at 155lbs on November 21st. Golovkin is the WBC middleweight mandatory challenger to the title, and you can’t force mandatory challengers to fight at a catch-weight. The only thing Cotto can do is ask Golovkin if he’ll fight at a catch-weight against him, and if he refuses, Cotto can then vacate the WBC title in response to his answer.



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