Cotto vs. Canelo a done deal for Fall if both win next fights?

By Boxing News - 04/16/2015 - Comments

canelo6900000By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) will be facing former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) in a fight that will take place in the Fall if both guys get past their next opponents beforehand, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. This still hasn’t been confirmed by either Cotto or Canelo though, so you have to take this boxing news with a grain of salt.

It’s unclear though if Cotto will still be in possession of his WBC 160 pound title or not. That’ll be up to the World Boxing Council, who previously said that Cotto will need to face his WBC mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin after Cotto’s next voluntary defense.

In this case, Cotto’s facing 33-year-old Australian Daniel Geale, a fighter who was recently beaten by Golovkin. If the WBC chooses not to enforce the mandatory then Cotto will be allowed to fight Canelo instead of the arguably more dangerous Golovkin. Just how long Cotto can go without defending his WBC title against his mandatory is up to the WBC.

There still isn’t a date for the Canelo vs. Cotto fight because the two fighters are waiting to see if there will be a rematch in September between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. The two stars are facing each other on May 2nd. If the fight is competitive, then there’s a good chance that they’ll be facing each other again in September on the Mexican Independence day weekend.

Canelo and Cotto will look to snatch this date if Mayweather isn’t fighting Pacquiao again. If he does face him again, then Canelo and Cotto will need to find another date to fight because they won’t be able to compete against a fight as big as Mayweather-Pacquiao.

“Cotto-Geale set and if Cotto and Canelo win their upcoming fights they’ll meet this fall,” Rafael said on his twitter. “Besides Canelo-Kirkland being set for 5/9 and Cotto-Geale for 6/6 guess what? Provided they win, Cotto-Canelo is done deal for fall. #boxing. Reason no set fall date for Cotto-Canelo if they both win is because while they want 9/12 they know Mayweather-Pacquiao winner might go then.”

It’s good that they have their senses about the September 12th date, because if Canelo got stubborn and started talking about wanting to compete against Mayweather-Pacquiao 2, it would take the pay-per-view distributers to let him and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions know that they’ll need to move off the September 12th date to accommodate the much, much bigger Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight.

The Canelo-Cotto fight would be a huge fight if both Canelo and Cotto were to face high quality opposition in their next fights instead of guys that are flawed and very beatable. Instead of Cotto facing Golovkin, he’s facing Geale next. That’s not a good fight and few boxing fans have expressed excitement at that match-up.

As for Canelo, he’s facing a rusty James Kirkland on May 9th. Kirkland hasn’t fought in 2013. Why De La Hoya dug up Kirkland for this fight instead of a relevant junior middleweight is the big question. The Canelo-Kirkland fight will take place at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. Cotto and Geale will be facing each other on June 6th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Rafael calls the Cotto-Geale fight a solid match-up. I disagree. It’s a solid mismatch, yes, but not a solid match-up. I think someone like Tureano Johnson vs. Cotto would be a lot more interesting, but of course Johnson can actually punch and Geale can’t. To me a solid match-up is when there’s an actual chance that either fighter can win. I don’t see that with the Cotto-Geale fight. It reminds me too much of the Cotto vs. Delvin Rodriguez fight. If you saw how horrible Geale looked against Golovkin, you wouldn’t be excited about seeing Cotto fight Geale unless you like mismatches. I don’t.

Cotto and Canelo were in negotiations for a fight earlier this year, but Canelo opted to pull out of the negotiations when it took too long. Cotto then moved from Top Rank to Roc Nation Sports in signing a three-fight deal with them. They’re getting Geale as the first fight of the contract, and Canelo as the second fight. It’s unclear who the third fight will be against, but it’ll likely be Mayweather or Pacquiao unless Cotto and Canelo face each other in a rematch.

HBO was said to not be interested in televising the Cotto-Geale fight unless Cotto agreed to face Canelo in his next fight. Since the Cotto vs. Geale fight is being televised by HBO, you have to figure that may have been a reason for the Cotto-Canelo fight getting made for later this year in September.

Cotto vs. Geale fight will be held at a catch-weight of 157 pounds instead of the full weight for the division. Cotto wanted the catch-weight due to his small size. Having to drain down three pounds to get to 157 may hurt Geale, who has been fighting at middleweight his entire career. He’s obviously not going to say no to the catch-weight because the money is too good for him to turn down the Cotto fight. For Cotto, this is his second straight catch-weight fight. His last bout against 40-year-old Sergio Martinez took place at a catch-weight of 159 pounds last year in June.

“I had to do it before when I faced Manny Pacquiao,” Cotto said via ESPN.com about the catch-weight for the Geale fight. “He made me come down to 145 pounds. Pacquiao used any advantage he had against me and I will do the same with everybody in the division. I am a small middleweight and I need to use this to my advantage. But I know he’s coming in great shape to prove to everybody he can beat Miguel Cotto,” Cotto said. “We will be ready for him.”

It would be nice to know if Cotto will look to continue to fight at middleweight beyond the Geale fight. I suppose it will depend on whether the WBC backs up what they previously said about Cotto having to face Golovkin next after his next fight. If the WBC forces the issue, then I think it’s academic that Cotto will vacate rather than face Golovkin. It’s too dangerous of a fight for Cotto, and too much of a chance that he not only loses, but gets knocked out in the process.

Besides the knockout loss to Golovkin, Geale has 12 round split decision loss to Darren Barker in 2013 in a fight that took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In Geale’s last fight, he defeated fellow Australian Jarrod Fletcher by a 12 round decision last December. That was a good win for Geale, albeit against a fringe level fighter.

Cotto has burned up an entire year since winning the WBC title off of 40-year-old Sergio Martinez. It’s hard to believe how much time Cotto wasted, because he could have slipped in three paydays during that time. For a fighter getting near the end of his career like Cotto, it doesn’t make sense that he’s not maximizing his income in the short amount of time he has left in the sport by fighting as much as possible.



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