Live Stream: Cotto vs. Geale Weigh-In at 1pm ET/10am PT

By Boxing News - 06/05/2015 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Boxing fans can have the chance of seeing today’s weigh-in between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) and Daniel Geale (31-3, 16 KOs) via live stream on Boxing News 24 at 1:00 p.m. ET, 10:00 a.m. PT. The 34-year-old Cotto will be fighting Geale this Saturday night on June 6th on HBO at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. This is a fight that Cotto badly needs to win for him to move forward to a big payday bout against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the fall. Cotto can’t lose if he wants to cash in with a big money fight.

One negative surrounding the Cotto vs. Geale fight is the 157lb catch-weight that Cotto has insisted on for the match-up. I’m not sure that Cotto realized the tremendous backlash that it would have with fans from around the globe, but it’s clearly been a lightning rod for a lot of fans, who don’t see Cotto as a legitimate champion at 160.

These fans see Cotto as a privileged prima donna who picked out a weak champion in Sergio Martinez, won his WBC belt, and then is now using his popularity to get catch-weight advantages over his opposition.

Cotto hasn’t fought in an entire year since winning the WBC title last June. Cotto feels that he needed to time off to heal up old injuries and to rest up. Some would say that he’s an old fighter who now needs a lot of time to heal between fights.

“I feel better. I feel rejuvenated. I feel I can beat anyone in boxing,” Cotto said via ABC.net.au.

It would be easier to take Cotto seriously about him being able to “beat anyone in boxing” if he were facing the likes of Canelo or Gennady Golovkin right now rather than a fighter who was blown out in three rounds by Golovkin last year in July. Geale did win his last fight in beating Jarrod Fletcher by a 12 round decision, but the loss to Golovkin really stands out sharp in contrast for the Australian fighter. If Cotto feels that he’s the best fighter in the sport, then he’s not shown much in the way of ambition in his last two fights by choosing to face Delvin Rodriguez and Sergio Martinez. When you’re the best, you normally would want to fight better opposition than that.

Cotto should have jumped straight to the better fighters after his back to back losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout in 2012. Instead, Cotto has used up three years of his career fighting only two times since then in beating Martinez and Rodriguez. Now we’re seeing Cotto face Geale, a number 6 ranked fighter at WBC.

“Catch-weights were out main point to make this fight happen,” Cotto said. We had a contract for 157 pounds. That’s the weight I expect him at.”

There’s no weight penalty in the contract, and it’s unknown what Cotto will do if Geale misses the weight. Cotto could do nothing, replace Geale with another opponent, or pull out of the fight. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach reportedly said they have alternative fighters that they could move in to replace Geale if he misses the fight.



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