WBC strips Miguel Cotto of 160lb title – Breaking news!

By Boxing News - 11/17/2015 - Comments

cotto (6)By Dan Ambrose: In a huge blow to this Saturday’s HBO pay-per-view fight between Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs), the World Boxing Council has reportedly stripped the 35-year-old Cotto of his WBC middleweight title for failing to follow their rules and regulations ahead of his fight this Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

According to the latest news, Cotto failed to pay the sanctioning fees that were originally agreed upon. The 25-year-old Canelo will still have the option to capture the now vacant WBC title if he wins the contest on Saturday, but Cotto cannot win the title back himself.

Cotto and Canelo will be fighting at a catch-weight of 155lbs this Saturday rather than the full weight of 160lbs for the fight. The WBC was on board with the catch-weight handicap that Cotto wanted for the fight.

The WBC had this to say about Cotto being stripped of his middleweight title:

”After several weeks of communications, countless attempts and good faith time extensions trying to preserve the fight as a WBC World Championship, Miguel Cotto and his promotion did not agree to comply with the WBC Rules & Regulations, while Saúl Alvarez has agreed to do so. Accordingly, the WBC must rule on the matter prior to the fight. The WBC hereby announces that effective immediately has withdrawn recognition of Miguel Cotto as WBC World Middleweight Champion. If Saul “Canelo” Alvarez wins the fight against Cotto, he will be recognized as the WBC middleweight world champion.”

Even if Canelo wins the fight, he’s already made it pretty clear that he has no intentions of fighting the WBC interim middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin despite the WBC saying that he has to. You can bet that Canelo will likely vacate the WBC middleweight title very soon after he wins the belt rather than being put in a position where he needs to fight Golovkin and risk being knocked out or badly beaten.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_gduRtMGY4

“It’s no secret that me and Miguel are not 160 pounders,” Canelo said to the latimes.com about a potential fight against Golovkin. “Our body structures are not there yet. I would love to fight Triple G when the time comes, and I’m willing and able to do it. When the time comes, I’m more than willing,” Canelo said.

This could hurt the PPV sales for the Cotto vs. Canelo fight. A lot of boxing fans want to see a title on the line when two stars are facing each other. While the WBC title will be up for grabs for Canelo, it still isn’t the same thing when the title isn’t available for both guys.

It’s understandable for Cotto not to want to make a huge effort to abide by the WBC’s rulings in order for him to keep the WBC title. If Cotto doesn’t have any real interest in holding onto the WBC title beyond Saturday’s fight, then why bother putting any effort to keep it? The WBC title becomes little more than a prop that is brought into the ring before the fight.

Cotto hasn’t made any mention of wanting to defend the WBC title against Golovkin if he beats Canelo, so you can assume that Cotto was just going to vacate the belt anyway after the Canelo fight. If that was going to be Cotto’s intention, then it helps explain why he wouldn’t be interested in jumping through the hoops that the WBC presented him in order to keep their WBC title.

This pretty much spells out what Canelo’s thoughts are about a fight between him and Golovkin. It’s almost academic that Canelo plans on vacating the WBC middleweight title if he beats Cotto on Saturday night. With Canelo saying he’s not a true middleweight yet, he’s obviously not going to face Golovkin until he feels that he is at the right weight. A lot of boxing fans are critical of Canelo over this issue, as he’s been rehydrating lately to the same weight if not more than Golovkin in coming in at over 170 pounds for his fights.

Golovkin rehydrates to 170lbs for his fights, so fans feel that Canelo should be willing to fight Golovkin because they are both equal size in terms of weight. But from Canelo’s stand point, he’s become accustomed to enjoying a weight advantage over his opponents since he turned pro 10 years ago, and it might be a bit of a shock for him if he faces someone who he wouldn’t have a weight or a power advantage over in Golovkin.



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