Roach: Geale looked fragile and very thin at weigh-in, Cotto will go for his body

By Boxing News - 06/05/2015 - Comments

geale783(Photo credit: Will Hart/HBO) By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach was gloating about how weak and thin Daniel Geale (31-3, 16 KOs) looked at the weigh-in on Friday after he had to drain down to get to the 157 pound catch-weight for his title fight against World Boxing Council 160 pound champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) on Saturday.

Roach says that Cotto will make it a point in going after the body of the 34-year-old Geale because he believes he’s weak from losing water weight to get down to the 157 pound catch-weight.

Geale could have blown off the catch-weight and put Cotto in the position where he would have needed to either accept it, or cancel the fight and anger boxing fans, HBO and his own promoters at Roc Nation Sports. It would have made Cotto look really bad if Geale came in three pounds over at 160, and Cotto then backed out of the fight because he failed to come in at the agreed upon weight of 157.

Geale didn’t want to do that because he believes he can beat Cotto and force a rematch with the Puerto Rican star. The money that he’s getting for this fight obviously was a factor that he didn’t want to risk losing by coming over the 157lb limit.

“I give him a lot of credit. Too many people would have ignored the contract and been over 157,” Roach said to ESPN.com. “I take my hat off to him. But for the first five rounds, we’re going all body (attack). He seemed fragile and very, very thin.”

It’s kind of sad that Roach is gloating about a fighter being weakened due to a catch-weight handicap that his fighter Cotto used to get an advantage. Cotto used his A-side pull to get that handicap against Geale, a fighter who isn’t as popular as him. It’s disappointing that the catch-weight for the fight was tilted in Cotto’s favor.

The thing about throwing body shots is it’s difficult to do when you’re not fighting a stationary guy, and I doubt that Geale is going to be stationary for this fight. If you look at Geale’s loss to Gennady Golovkin last year, you’ll notice that Golovkin threw very few body shots in the fight.

The reason for that is because Geale was moving so much, making it impossible for Golovkin to throw to the body with his feet set. Sure, Cotto can throw body shots while Geale is on the move, but it’s not going to be hard enough shots to do anything to him. Cotto doesn’t have long arms, and he’s going to need Geale to stand like a statue for him to land his body shots and his left hook.

Geale obviously will have seen Cotto’s recent fights against Sergio Martinez and Delvin Rodriguez and will know that it’s not a wise thing for him to stand motionless to trade shots. He’ll also know that it’s not smart for him to back up against the ropes like Delvin Rodriguez foolishly did in their fight in 2013. That would asking for trouble.



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