By Jim Dower: Miguel Cotto will be fighting in December in December, and his opponent could be Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, according to trainer Freddie Roach. Unfortunately, Canelo would seem to be not possible for Cotto, as he says he won’t be fighting again until next May. Canelo only fights two times a year on the Mexican holidays.
HBO is making the 36-year-old Cotto offers for his upcoming fight, says Roach. For HBO to be making offers, it suggests that Cotto will be fighting on pay-per-view against a big name. HBO gave Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs) the green light to fight Yoshihiro Kamegai on August 26 in a fight that not competitive or entertaining in any way shape or form. Kamegai was more of a high level journeyman level opponent that the World Boxing Organization had given an elevated ranking to.
Cotto needs a big name for his December fight like Golovkin or Canelo. Lightweight Mikey Garcia would like to fight Cotto, but it’s not a fight that interests Roach. He feels that Canelo or Golovkin would be better for Cotto. There would be an increased interest in Cotto fight GGG or Canelo over Mikey, who didn’t shine in his recent win over Adrien Broner last July.
“We are discussing that every day. At this point, we’re getting offers from HBO and right now we haven’t made a decision yet, but it could be one of the two fighters that fought the other night,” said Roach to skysports.com. “I wouldn’t mind fighting either one of them at this point.”
Cotto has never shown a desire to fight Golovkin in the past. It would be interesting if the Puerto Rican fighter decides he wants to get inside the ring with Triple G in December. It would likely be a one-sided fight, as Cotto is too short for him to reach Golovkin with his punches. It would be a similar fight to the Canelo vs. Golokvin match. Canelo was too short to reach Golovkin with his shots when he was fighting from the outside, jabbing him round after round.
Canelo and Golovkin are negotiating their rematch for next year right now. Golovkin is probably the only one of those 2 that would be willing to fight Cotto in December, and that’s if he can’t get a quick deal put together with Canelo. If the negotiations stall for the rematch, then Golovkin might opt to take the Cotto fight in December to stay busy.
Golden Boy Promotions will likely want to slant the negotiating terms in Canelo’s favor once again by picking out Las Vegas for the rematch with Golovkin, and having the same financial terms in place as last time, even though Golovkin was viewed largely by the boxing public as the winner of the fight. The judges scored it as a 12 round draw, but the decision has not been agreed with by the boxing world. They collectively view Golovkin as the winner, and Canelo as the popular guy that the judges gave a draw to.
Mikey Garcia says he would move up to junior middleweight to fight Cotto. However, it’s unclear whether the casual boxing fans know who Mikey is. He’s fought most of his career at featherweight and super featherweight. Those are not divisions that the casual boxing fans follow in large numbers. If Cotto fights Mikey on HBO PPV, he could wind up with disappointing PPV numbers. Mikey is about as well known to the casual fans as Cotto’s last opponent Kamegai. In other words, Mikey is a complete unknown to the casual fans.
“I would really go to 154 [in December] for Cotto,” Garcia said to the latimes.com. “I might be hot enough for the [Cotto] fight.”
Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez seems to be mildly interested in the Cotto-Garcia fight.
“I’ve seen what Mikey has said and would like to know more,” Gomez said. “Mikey knows how to contact me.”