Cotto’s adviser says Bradley a bigger fight than Golovkin

By Boxing News - 12/30/2014 - Comments

bradley68By Dan Ambrose: In a hint that WBA 160lb champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) may have a hard time getting a fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) in the near future, Cotto’s adviser Gaby Penagaricano is saying that Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) is a bigger fight for Cotto than Golovkin is.

If the fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez falls through, then guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr or Bradley could be the next in line for Cotto. Penagaricano didn’t say whether Cotto will opt to vacate his WBC title rather than face Golovkin in the near future, but that’s definitely something may wind up happening.

Golovkin recently defeated Marco Antonio Rubio to pick up the WBC interim middleweight title and put himself in position to get a shot at Cotto. However, Golovkin may have beaten Rubio for nothing, because there’s a chance that he might not ever get a crack at the 34-year-old Cotto.

“He’s [Bradley] class A and he’s absolutely at the top of the game. So I’m sure that, also, he would make a great fight. Sure, I would say that he would be a bit bigger than Golovkin, I would say,” Penagaricano said via RingTV.com. “There are a few bigger fights than a fight with Golovkin.”

I disagree with Penagaricano that Bradley would be a bigger fight for Cotto than Golovkin. I believe Golovkin would be a much, much bigger fight for Cotto than Bradley. I don’t think it would be even close.

Golovkin already has a huge fan base that is growing with each fight, and if they marketed the Cotto-Golovkin fight right with HBO Cotto-Golovkin 24/7 by having a series of episodes created instead of just one episode, then I could see it being a huge fight.

The Golovkin fight obviously would be the much more dangerous fight compared to Bradley, who would be moving up from the welterweight division to take the fight. Bradley can’t punch even at welterweight, and he’s coming of draw against Diego Chaves in his last fight.

Bradley took a lot of punishment in that fight, and it would likely be far worse if he moved up to middleweight to face Cotto. Even if there was a catch-weight involved to make it easy for Bradley, he would still be biting off more than he could chew with this fight.

I’m just wondering how long it’ll be before Cotto vacates his WBC title without facing Golovkin. It’ll likely depend on if the World Boxing Council pushes him or not to defend his title against Golovkin.

If the WBC gives Cotto two or three optional title defenses, then this thing will be strung out until 2016. At that point I could see Cotto then vacating if Golovkin hasn’t given up on the idea of him ever getting a fight against him.



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