By Dan Ambrose: If trainer Freddie Roach has any say so in the matching of WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs), he won’t be facing IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) anytime soon if ever. Roach says he spoke with Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez recently in California and told him point blank that Golovkin’s PPV numbers aren’t high enough for him to fight Cotto.
Roach says that if Golovkin can raise his PPV numbers, then he’d have a fight against the 35-year-old Cotto.
With what Roach said to Sanchez, it doesn’t look we’re going to see a Cotto-Golovkin fight. Roach is using Golovkin’s low pay-per-view numbers for his fight on HBO against David Lemieux last month as a reason for not giving Cotto a green light to fight him.
The thing is Cotto hasn’t been fighting anyone with big PPV numbers since his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. three years ago in 2012. We’re talking three years since Cotto fought a big PPV draw. Since Cotto’s loss to Mayweather Jr. in 2012, he’s fought Austin Trout, Delvin Rodriguez, Sergio Martinez and Daniel Geale. Only the fight against Martinez was on HBO PPV for Cotto, and it brought in only 300,000 PPV buys. Martinez wasn’t a PPV fighter, and Cotto still fought him.
To be sure, Cotto’s fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on November 21st of this month will be on HBO PPV, and it will likely bring in good numbers, but probably not huge numbers. We’re probably talking 500,000 to 600,000 PPV buys at the most.
“It is possible [Cotto vs. Golovkin], but I have to say that time in Santa Fe Springs [California]. I met with Abel Sanchez, and talked about the possibility of a Cotto-Golovkin fight, and he said to me ‘Well, you have the last word to agree to that battle,’ and I said ‘if you manage to raise your numbers to make a good pay-per-view fight, it can be done, because the reality is that GGG is not yet as well-known in the United States. He is a great fighter. I have no doubt about that and certainly it would be a very difficult fight for Miguel and me. I like challenges and I would love that fight to happen,’” Roach said via ESPN Desportes.
At 35, I don’t know how much longer Cotto can wait for Golovkin’s PPV numbers to increase enough to where he’ll pass muster with Roach to let him take the fight. If Cotto and Canelo end up fighting each other three times, there might not be enough left of Cotto physically to fight Golovkin.
What we don’t want to see is a totally shot and old Cotto come into a fight against a still in his prime Golovkin and wind up getting knocked out cold by him. That would be a pity. We saw how Cotto chose not to fight Sergio Martinez until he was 39-years-old and no longer physically what he once was due to a knee problem and old age. But I think it would work in the reverse for Cotto if he fought Golovkin, because I see Cotto aging worse than Golovkin right now, and I don’t think Cotto’s fights with Canelo will help his aging.
I see them fighting at least two times unless there’s a wipeout on November 21st with one of them getting knocked out or if the fight fails to bring in big PPV numbers. I think they’re definitely fight each other twice, and likely three times. It’s the only options Cotto and Canelo really have.
If they choose to fight the other top middleweights like Andy Lee, Peter Quillin, Billy Joe Saunders and Daniel Jacobs, it would be risky for them without a lot of money for those fights. If the Cotto-Canelo winner chooses to fight junior middleweights like Jermall Charlo or Jermell Charlo, they would have even more risk of losing, but without much money. I think what we might see is the Cotto-Canelo winner choosing to fight welterweight champion Tim Bradley in a safe fight where Cotto or Canelo would hold all the advantages. If you made Cotto-Bradley on PPV, it might bring in 300,000 PPV buys, but it would be a sick mismatch.
Golovkin probably won’t ever get a fight against Cotto or Canelo until he’s either shot or Cotto is looking to cash out in the final fight of his career.
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