By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach says he prefers a rematch against Floyd Mayweather Jr. after the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) fight on November 21st rather than a unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs).
Roach says Golovkin isn’t a big name right now, and he’s not a pay-per-view draw like he needs to be in order for a fight between him and Cotto to be a big fight. Roach thinks that Golovkin will be a good fight for Cotto at some point in the future, but not right now.
Roach thinks that Mayweather will stage a comeback in 2016, and he thinks it’s a great idea for him to fight the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight, which Roach feels will be Cotto. He says Cotto will win that fight by a late knockout. Roach then will look to match Cotto against Mayweather for a second fight between them.
Mayweather defeated Cotto by a 12 round decision in 2012. This was before Roach was the trainer for Cotto. Roach believes that with him as his trainer, Cotto will beat Mayweather in a rematch. Cotto thinks the same thing.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if he’s going to get the opportunity to test his theory because Mayweather seems to be pretty content with all the money he’s made in his fights against Manny Pacquiao, Canelo, Marcos Maidana, Robert Guerrero and Andre Berto.
“We’re talking about that [Golovkin vs. Cotto] a little bit,” Roach said to RingTV.com. “If all the negotiations go well, I’m saying yes to that fight. I’ve talked to Miguel about that, and he agrees with me, but we have to have a fair playing field. The thing about Golovkin right now is he’s not that well-known, and he’s not that big of a draw in pay-per-view. So you’re fighting one of the toughest guys out there for maybe not a lot of money. I think possibly if we do knock him [Canelo] out and win this fight and Mayweather comes back, which I think he will, I’d like to get him in a rematch. It’s a bigger fighter. It’s more money and maybe not as dangerous. Golovkin is on. If it happens, it happens. We’re on it 100 percent behind it. Somewhere down the line we will fight him, maybe next or in a couple of fights. I talked to Abel Sanchez the other night. I told Abel it’s a tough, tough fight. When they can both get what they deserve for this fight, then we’ll do it,” Roach said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_gduRtMGY4
Cotto is 35-years-old, and he can’t afford to wait around for too much longer for a fight against Golovkin. It makes sense for him to wait as long as possible before that fight is made, but Cotto doesn’t have the time to wait. If he and Roach think they can wait five years and face Golovkin, then they’re kidding themselves.
Mayweather was able to wait five years before fighting Pacquiao, but it was a different story with them. They were huge stars and could afford to wait. I don’t think Cotto has the ability to wait for ages before he fights Golovkin. Cotto will lose too much from his game if he waits to take that fight.
Besides that, Cotto will be under tremendous pressure to fight the top middleweights like Tureano Johnson, and that’ll be a tough fight for Cotto. He’s not going to be able to make big money fighting guys like Daniel Geale, Delvin Rodriguez and other lesser fighters. If Cotto moves down in weight to 154, there will be huge pressure on him to fight the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara.
Those would be extremely tough fights for him as well. Cotto kind of has to face Golovkin or else he’s going to be put in a situation where he’ll have to deal with some very, very hard fights at 160 and 154.
Roach’s pipe dream of Mayweather coming back to fight Cotto isn’t going to happen. If Mayweather wanted a rematch with Cotto, then he would have taken the fight in the last three years. The fact that it was a grueling fight for Mayweather is enough to know that he’s never going to fight Cotto again, especially now that he’s bulked up to middleweight.
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