By Dan Ambrose: In what has to be seen as the end of any chance of a fight between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs), Cotto revealed today that he plans on retiring from boxing next year. What this means is that we’re likely going to see Cotto fight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) two to three times, and then Cotto will retire without ever fighting Golovkin.
Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach revealed today that Golovkin isn’t popular enough for him to get a fight against Cotto, and that if his popularity were to change someday, then there might be a fight between them. But if Cotto is serious about retiring in one year from now, then it’s obviously not going to be enough time for Golovkin to substantially increase his popularity enough to get a fight against Cotto in that short of a time frame.
“I’m doing it for the benefit of the community and my family,” Cotto said via Fight News. “I said once that I said once that I would retire before I was 30 and I’m 35 now, but I’m going to be in boxing no longer than a year from now.”
So there it is. Cotto will be retiring next year at some point. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions has already said that he’s interested in having Canelo fight Cotto three straight times, depending on how competitive the fights are and how much money is made from the fights on HBO PPV. Roach also says he would like to see Cotto and Canelo fight each other over and over again unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. chooses to come out of retirement to face Cotto in a rematch.
I can’t see Cotto choosing to fight anyone else for the remainder of his career besides Canelo, because I think Cotto is looking to cash out at this point in his career by making the most money he can before retiring. The only way I don’t see him fighting Canelo three times is if Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao show interest in fighting him again, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. I certainly don’t see Cotto or Canelo looking to fight guys like Peter Quillin, Andy Lee, Billy Joe Saunders, Tureano Johnson, Daniel Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara or Demetrius Andrade.
“Now, at this moment, I’m looking for the perfect opportunity and occasion to hit my opponent – and that can only arrive with experience. I have 36 minutes to beat my opponent and I use every second of that,” Cotto said.
It’s not all bad that Cotto will likely never face Golovkin. At least Cotto is fighting Canelo next on November 21st on HBO pay-per-view from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight will be selling for $59.99 on PPV, and that’s a much better price than the disappointing fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, which sold for $100 to $110 on HBO/Showtime PPV.
The Cotto-Canelo fight should be entertaining from start to finish, and if they choose to fight each other two more times after that, then it’s still a pretty good deal for the boxing fans. They won’t be facing what some boxing fans see as the best fighter in the middleweight division in Golovkin, but then again, Cotto and Canelo both say they’re not real middleweights. That gives them an out for dodging the Golovkin fight.
The undercard of the Cotto-Canelo fight isn’t much to speak of now that Andre Ward has pulled out of the card due to an injury. For boxing fans interested in the Cotto vs. Canelo fight on HBO, they’re pretty much only getting the Cotto-Canelo fight for their $59.99, because the undercard isn’t stacked with well-known fighters. Here’s what the undercard looks like:
Takashi Miura vs. Francisco Vargas
Randy Caballero vs. Lee Haskins
Jayson Velez vs. Ronny Rios
I’m personally not interested in seeing any of those fights or fighters on a pay-per-view fight. If they were on Premier Boxing Champions on a non-premium channel like NBC Sports, I might be interested in watching it if there weren’t more interesting fights on that night, but I would never go out of my way to see any of fighters, because I don’t rate them as being good fighters. I already saw Velez get a questionable draw against Evgeny Gradovich last year, and I have no interest in seeing Velez ever again.
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