Cotto chooses not to face Triple G, will fight Geale next

By Bradley Dee - 04/14/2015 - Comments

cotto57By Bradley Dee: Almost one year ago, Miguel Cotto won the true middleweight crown from WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez last year in June. The version of Sergio Martinez that he won the crown from was a shopworn, injured Sergio Martinez as was evident from his immediate inability to slip and move away from punches.

Not taking anything away from the victory, this would have still been a decent win, however instead of defending the middleweight crown, Cotto has chosen to sit on the belt and price himself out of major fights and fight lesser opponents.

About 6 months ago Cotto and his team had the opportunity to fight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, which would have been a HUGE fight at Madison Square Garden in New York, or anywhere for that matter. Instead, as per the latest talk we hear going around, Cotto was difficult to impossible to close a deal with. From what has been circulated, Canelo gave Cotto almost everything he wanted, and still Cotto refused to sign the contract. Cotto signed with Roc Nation sports in a move that surprised everyone and chose to bypass the huge payday that came with the Canelo fight.

Most of the boxing world knows from Cotto’s repeated statements about Gennady Golovkin that he wants nothing to do with him. It’s apparent that he’s afraid to get in the ring with Golovkin. In his last statement, he said he wouldn’t let anyone else tell him how to run his career or who he would fight. The WBC has granted him ONE voluntary defense, however, after that he will be stripped if he doesn’t defend against Golovkin.

Instead of choosing a legitimate contender at the middleweight limit, Cotto has instead chosen Daniel Geale and wants to further handicap Geale by making him shrink down to 157 pounds. This is a guy Golovkin took out in 3 rounds in an absolute destruction of a former contender. Before Golovkin beat him he was still considered a top 5 middleweight. Now Geale might be considered top 10 at best, but regardless, Cotto is not fighting Golovkin after Geale.

HBO has wisely finally put their foot down on Cotto and said they won’t even entertain televising Cotto’s next fight if he doesn’t sign to fight Canelo immediately after this fight. Even that is no guarantee that they’ll cover this fight and approve Geale to fight on HBO.

So there you have it. You can expect Cotto to vacate the middleweight belt soon. If Golden Boy can actually get him to negotiate into a fight with Canelo, we might see that fight, but in my opinion Cotto loses bad to Canelo who can really punch.

It’s really a shame what Cotto and Roc Nation are doing. Gennady Golovkin is stuck fighting anyone who will dare fight him at 160 while Cotto picks a guy Triple G destroyed already and forces him into a catchweight fight. And don’t you dare mention Andre Ward at 168 for Golovkin. Ward hasn’t fought in almost 2 years and is taking a tuneup fight late in the summer against a guaranteed tune up type opponent. You can’t criticize Golovkin for fighting the best available people at 160, something Cotto will not do.

Cotto won’t even fight the best available at 154 or rematch the guy who clearly beat him pillar to post, Austin Trout. Just be glad that the Floyd Mayweather rematch never happened.



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