Golovkin wants to fight in December, Cotto an option

By Boxing News - 09/19/2017 - Comments

Image: Golovkin wants to fight in December, Cotto an option

By Jeff Aranow: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) wants to get back inside the ring in December to defend his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight titles rather than sit and wait until May of 2018 to face Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) for a rematch. One option for Golovkin’s December fight is Miguel Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs). He’s supposed to be retiring after December, and he’s looking for a big fight.

Cotto, 5’7″, would be giving away a lot of height, reach, weight and power to Golovkin. It would be a mismatch on paper and likely inside the ring. Cotto did look good in beating Yoshihiro Kamegai last month by a wide 12 round unanimous decision on August 26 to capture the vacant WBO junior middleweight title. Kamegai is not in Golovkin’s class, however. Beating a fighter like Kamegai doesn’t mean that Cotto will have a chance of defeating Golovkin.

Golovkin fought to a controversial 12 round draw against Canelo last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. 2 of the judges handed in questionable scores with 118-110 score for Canelo and 114-114. Those scores kept Canelo from losing the fight, which he appeared to lose in the eyes of many boing fans.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says they don’t want to just stay idle for the remainder of the year. They want to be busy fighting the best possible option. But when they do face Canelo again, they would prefer to have the rematch take place in New York or Dallas, Texas. The rematch would do well in either of those places. Golovkin could come back to Vegas for the Canelo rematch, but Loeffler would be more careful when it comes to the selection of the judges for the second fight.

Loeffler thought things would be fine with the 3 judges that worked the Canelo-GGG fight, even though Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez had some concerns about Adelaide Byrd being one of the judges. Loeffler didn’t object to here working the fight. She’s the one turned in a 118-110 score in favor of Canelo. She only gave Golovkin 2 rounds in the entire 12 round fight. Another one of the judges, Don Trella, scored the fight 6 rounds to 6, and that was questionable score as well.

Putting together a fight against Cotto could be tricky, because in the past he’s fought only at catch-weights at middleweight despite winning and holding down the WBC middleweight title in 2014. Assuming Cotto insists on a catch-weight in order to fight at middleweight, it would mean Golovkin might have to come down to 156-159 for the fight to get made. In the past, Golovkin has said he would only come down in weight to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. but no one else. Cotto isn’t in the same league as Mayweather.

If Cotto insists on the catch-weight for a fight with Golovkin, it could be a deal-breaker. Cotto has other options for his December fight against Mikey Garcia and David Lemieux. Neither of them would attract the same kind of interest from the boxing public that a fight against Golovkin would generate.

“Gennady wants to fight before May but, if they commit to a rematch, we’ll have to see if that makes sense. We can’t put Gennady’s career on hold but [a rematch] is the priority,” Loeffler said to skysports.com.

Canelo will be out of the ring until May of next year. He and his promoters say they’re open to a rematch against Golovkin, but we’ll have to see how much interest they have. It’s likely that they’ll want to dictate the terms of where the fight will be staged, which date, and what the purses will be. With Golovkin failing to get a win over Canelo last Saturday night, it prevents him and his management from getting a much better financial deal for the second fight compared to what they could have done had he been given the victory. The 12 round draw from last Saturday works out well for Canelo and Golden Boy, being that it puts them in the power position once again to give Golovkin the same exact terms as the previous fight without him getting a better deal that he would deserve if the judges had scored the fight for him.

“If [Trella] didn’t have a draw we wouldn’t be talking about [Byrd’s] scorecard. So we can’t put all the blame on Byrd. [Trella] needs to be held accountable too,” said Loeffler.

Trella hasn’t had as much focus as his questionable score due to Byrd’s odd 118-110 score, but it’s still a very controversial score for a fight that was clearly controlled by Golovkin last Saturday night. Canelo fought well in spurts, but he was mostly tired and unable to throw punches due to fatigue.

Teddy Atlas of ESPN had some choice things to say about the judge that scored the fight 114-114. He did not agree with that score at all.

”I had it 118-110, believe it or not, the same as the crook had it, but the other way,” said Atlas to BadcultureTV in saying he picked Golovkin over Canelo by a 10 rounds to 2 score. “I could have had it 117-111. Either way would have been [fine]. We’re not looking at the 114-114. The only reason why we’re not looking at that score is because latex gloves were used so you wouldn’t leave fingerprints. That’s the oldest move in boxing if you want to corrupt a fight, if you want to give it to somebody else or not give it to somebody. You make it a draw so people will conjecture about it like we are right now. People are fooled very easy so you don’t leave finger prints. That’s what the 114-114 was. It was a robbery without fingerprints. That’s the only difference. You’re either inept or you’re corrupt,” said Atlas.

Atlas obviously was not happy with the 118-110 and 114-114 scores, even though he had picked Canelo to win the fight ahead of time. Atlas had gone on in length before the fight how Golovkin had shown signs of deterioration in his 2 previous fights leading up to the Canelo vs. GGG fight last Saturday night. However, Atlas called it like he saw it afterwards, and he felt that Golovkin won a fairly easy fight by a 10 rounds to 2 score with the way he dictated the pace and controlled the action against Canelo, who he saw as a log being moved around by the ocean water. Canelo wasn’t dictating. He was being dictated to by Golovkin.

“Who landed the most clean effective punches,” said Atlas talking about Canelo-Golovkin. “Who controlled the pace of the fight? You want to call it ring generalship, call it whatever. It’s the one who controls the fight. Sometimes you don’t need a scorecard. You just side it on what you see,” said Atlas.

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