Cotto-Canelo: Do fans care about WBC title?

By Michael Vena - 11/20/2015 - Comments

1-canelo-cotto (1)By Yannis Mihanos: Earlier this week the news spread that Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) has been stripped of his WBC middleweight title because he failed to pay the World Boxing Council’s $300,000 sanctioning fee in order for him to have the WBC title on the line for his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight on HBO pay-per-view from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The news spread a bit of panic around, especially to the organizers and the TV channels for the Cotto vs. Canelo fight.

The biggest fear was that this will sabotage the promotion and sales of this highly anticipated fight.

Earlier this year Floyd Mayweather Jr., after the fight against Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd, he too decided not to pay the sanctioning fee and vacate his WBO 147lb title belt.

Cotto felt confident and refused to enter on this process for this fight against Canelo and pay this substantial amount.

After all, Cotto is now 35-years-old and has been in boxing long enough to know what he wants. And what he wants he gets.

The only potential blow is the promotion and sales of the Cotto-Canelo fight, because there is always a percentage of fans who check this before watching any fight even if it’s about two very popular fighters.

Titles seem to add in the importance of the fight, without them at stake some might prefer to go to sleep and watch it on replay or for free later on You Tube.

So at times titles do spike the sales and increase the motives for the fans to watch and be present in the fight.

But in the case of this match I don’t think what happened will create any significant damage, Las Vegas tickets are already sold out and most fight fans have already made up their mind about watching the fight.

The only thing left for me to question now is how long? How long before the fight to begin.

This colorful Latin encounter of Puerto Rico vs Mexico for the Cotto vs. Canelo fight, makes my blood boil and my excitement hitting up through the roof.

So when it comes to such an encounter guaranteed of quality and explosive action, who gives a damn about title belts? I honestly think boxing fans don’t care that the WBC title won’t be on the line for both fighters on Saturday, even though the WBC has already said that Canelo can still win the now vacant WBC title.



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