By Chris Williams: Earlier today, the news of the Miguel Cotto vs. James Kirkland fight was made official with the fight taking place on HBO PPV on Feb.25 at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. There’s no word yet on how much the Cotto-Kirkland fight will sell for on HBO pay-per-view.
Hopefully, it’s a good price, because this is NOT a championship level fight between Cotto and Kirkland. It’s two aging fighters coming off of a LONG layoff of over one year with both of them having been beaten soundly by Saul Canelo Alvarez in their last fights.
Given those circumstances, it makes sense for the Cotto-Kirkland fight to go for a nice price for the boxing fans. I personally think the Cotto vs. Kirkland fight would sell quite well if it were to be sold on PPV for around $2 dollars.
I think that would be a good price for this fight. You have to remember, Kirkland hasn’t won a fight in 3 years. It’s not as if the 32-year-old Kirkland has been winning, and is a highly ranked contender in the 154lb division. Kirkland is not up there with guys like Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara or Jermell Charlo. Kirkland has NOT won a fight since 2013 when he beat Glen Tapia. I don’t know why Cotto is fighting Kirkland on HBO PPV. That’s the big question. Out of all the fighters that Cotto could have selected for a PPV fight, Kirkland is the oddest choice you could imagine him making.
“You know the fight will be exciting while it lasts. February 25 can’t come soon enough,” said Kirkland.
Kirkland talking about the fight with Cotto being an exciting one while it lasts suggests to me that he realizes that he’s going to get knocked out in this fight, and he’s letting the boxing fans know about it ahead of time. That’s probably not the best way to sell this mismatch, but what can you do? Kirkland has a history of being knocked out and knocked down. Canelo Alvarez dropped Kirkland three times last year in stopping him in the 3rd round. Japanese middleweight Nobuhiro Ishida knocked Kirkland down three times in stopping him in the 1st round in 2011. Ishida isn’t known for his punching power. He still was able to drop Kirkland like a yo-yo before stopping him. Allen Conyers knocked Kirkland down in their fight in 2007. Kirkland won the fight by a 1st round knockout.
The tickets for the Cotto vs. Kirkland fight are being sold at a fair price for the boxing fans. The tickets are selling for $304, $204, $154, $104, $79, $54 and $29. However, it’s still not good news that the fight is being staged in Texas. That’s not where Cotto’s fan base is located. Cotto’s fans are in New York and Florida, not Texas.
Kirkland will be expected to bring in the fans for this fight. With the location of the Cotto-Kirkland fight taking place in Texas, it could be that Cotto and Roc Nation has selected this state in order to help drive interest for a rematch between Cotto and Saul Canelo Alvarez if it takes place in 2017. By having the Cotto vs. Kirkland fight in Texas, it could help sell more tickets for when/if Canelo and Cotto fight each other again, possibly in Texas. That’s only reason why I can see a fight between Cotto and Kirkland taking place in Texas or even at all, period. Cotto can’t afford to fight someone good like the Charlo brothers, because the chances of him losing to one of them would be extremely high.
If Cotto loses, it would likely finish any hopes of him fighting Canelo a second time. That’s Cotto’s biggest payday opportunity on the horizon. He’s not going to fight a wrecking crew like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, because the money would not be huge in comparison to Canelo, and it would probably end badly for Cotto with him getting knocked out quickly. Canelo vs. Cotto brought in 900,000 PPV buys on HBO in November 2015.
A rematch will likely bring in far fewer buys due to Canelo already proving he’s the better fighter than Cotto by beating him last time, and by Cotto choosing to stay out of the ring for over a year. Cotto’s fight against Kirkland isn’t going to help make the rematch against Canelo a bigger fight, because the boxing public realizes that Kirkland is no longer a major player in the sport. He’s just someone that fights rarely nowadays.
With boxing PPV still arguably recovering from the after effects of the HUGE letdown in the overpriced Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight from 2015, the last thing the fans need is another dud for PPV in the form of the Cotto vs. Kirkland fight. This fight is one that could potentially hurt PPV if it’s a total mismatch like Kirkland’s last fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2015. Golden Boy Promotions signed the overweight Kirkland for Canelo to fight despite Kirkland not having fought in two years. They didn’t stick the fight on HBO PPV, which is a good thing, but the mismatch still ended up on HBO Boxing. What a bad it was.
Canelo quickly knocked out Kirkland in three rounds in an effortless manner. Kirkland only looked good in the 1st round when he stunned Canelo with a big shot. Canelo knocked Kirkland down three times in the fight in dropping him in the 1st and twice in the 3rd round. Kirkland hasn’t fought since. Being inactive has been a pattern for Kirkland since 2012. I don’t know why Kirkland stopped fighting frequently. Kirkland was always a busy fighter up until 2012. He’s been a part time guy since then. Kirkland fought once in 2012, once in 2013, not at all in 2014 and once in 2015.
The co-feature bout on the Canelo vs. Kirkland fight card is WBA Super World super bantamweight champion Guillermo “The Jackal” Rigondeaux 17-0, 11 KOs) fighting #1 WBA Moises Flores 25-0, 17 KOs). Rigondeaux, 36, is a very good fighter, but he’s not known for being involved in a lot of exciting matches. Maybe it’s possible that the 30-year-old Flores has the kind of fighting style that will bring out the best in the Cuban two-time Olympic gold medalist. I’m not expecting much though. Rigondeaux has got the feet to elude the greatest pressure fighters in the 122lb division. There’s not one that could force Rigondeaux to stand and brawl with them. Rigondeaux is going to fight Flores on his terms on February 25, and if Flores can’t deal with that style, then he’ll wind up as Rigondeaux’s 18th victory of his pro career. As far as Rigondeaux bringing in boxing fans to purchase the Cotto-Kirkland fight on HBO PPV, I don’t see it happening. I don’t think the fans are going to get too excited about wanting to purchase the Cotto-Kirkland fight card just because Rigondeaux is fighting on the card. At the same time, I don’t think the Rigondeaux-Flores fight is going to be an exciting enough one to make the fans feel a little bit better about having paid their hard-earned money for the Cotto vs. Kirkland fight on HBO PPV, especially if the fight turns out to be a real massacre like Cotto’s fight against Sergio Martinez in 2014. Who can forget that one? Martinez, 39 at the time of the fight, hadn’t fought in over a year and was coming off two surgeries on his right knee when he fought Cotto. It was immediately clear from the 1st round that Martinez’s surgically repaired knee did not look strong. Cotto was ten able to batter Martinez for the 10 rounds in getting a stoppage to win the WBC middleweight title. Cotto defended the WBC middleweight title successfully once against an aging Daniel Geale in stopping him in the 4th. Geale was a decent fighter many years ago, but by the time Cotto fought him, he was a 34-year-old fighter who’d seen better days and had recently been knocked out by Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Cotto lost his WBC title before he fought Saul Canelo Alvarez when the World Boxing Council withdrew recognition of Cotto as their champion due to him not paying the sanctioning fees for the belt. The WBC title was on the line for Canelo for the Cotto fight, but it wasn’t for Cotto.