Cotto vs. Lemieux in play for Dec.2 on HBO in New York

By Boxing News - 09/26/2017 - Comments

Image: Cotto vs. Lemieux in play for Dec.2 on HBO in New York

By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto and David Lemieux could be facing each other on December 2 on HBO at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to Dan Rafael. If Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs) and Lemieux (38-3, 33 KOs) don’t face each other on that date, then Lemieux will still wind up on the undercard in the co-feature.

Cotto, 36, would obviously be in the main event still, but against another opponent. This would likely be on HBO pay-per-view for the Cotto vs. Lemieux fight.

Lemieux makes sense for Cotto to fight due to it being a fight that HBO would be agreeable to televise, as it would attract boxing fans. With Saul Canelo Alvarez out for the remainder of 2017, he’s not available for Cotto to fight.

Gennady Golovkin would agree to a fight against Cotto, but Golden Boy Promotions prefer that he not fight until the likely rematch with Canelo on May 5 next year. When you take Canelo and Golovkin off the table, it leaves Cotto only Lemieux as far as a PPV opponent. Manny Pacquiao is tied with his senatorial duties in the Philippines for the remainder of 2017, so he’s not available for Cotto to fight. None of the welterweights are popular enough to fight Cotto.

Lemieux is the only guy that has the name recognition that the casual boxing fans would get excited about fighting Cotto. Lemieux has been on HBO many times, and he’s well known more so than any other option.

Golden Boy wants Lemieux to fight Cotto, because it helps build an eventual Canelo vs. Lemieux fight for the future. There’s a risk involved for Lemieux to take on Cotto, considering he’s powerful, experienced and very crafty. Cotto would be moving constantly in a fight against Lemieux just like he did in his last fight against Yoshihiro Kamegai on August 26.

Cotto won that fight by a wide 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBO junior middleweight title. Cotto fought a lot differently against Kamegai than he had in his previous fights. Cotto now moves a lot, and he shoves to keep his opponents from getting close enough to hit him. Lemieux might have a tough time landing his left hook the constant shoving and moving that Cotto does.

A good referee might stop Cotto from pushing Lemieux, but you never know. The referee that worked the Cotto-Kamegai fight left Cotto shove Kamegai each time he got close to him. Kamegai kept looking at the referee Lou Moret to see if he would do something to stop Cotto from illegally shoving him, but the referee did nothing. Kamegai motioned for the referee to stop Cotto from shoving him, but the referee looked at the Japanese fighter blankly without batting an eye and did nothing about it.

If Cotto can shove Lemieux all night each time he gets close enough to throw his left hook, he’s going to need to figure out what he can do about it. If Cotto can take away his left hook by illegally shoving, then it’s going to force Lemieux switch weapons and use his right hand more unless he wants to fight fire with fire by using illegal tricks on Cotto. Hopefully there’s a good referee that does his job, because the Cotto-Kamegai was sad to watch with all the shoving that Cotto was allowed to do for 12 rounds.

Cotto will likely get knocked out if he can’t game the system by shoving Lemieux all night long. If Cotto fights Lemieux in a clean fight, he gets nailed with one of Lemieux’s huge left hooks and knocked out by the 6th round. What we don’t know is how weakened Lemieux will be from the catch-weight handicap that Cotto will require. If Cotto makes Lemieux drain down to 155 or 156, then I think that’s going to badly hurt him and make him useless after the first 3 or 4 rounds.

Lemieux will be strong in the first quarter of the fight, but if he has to drain himself to make a strict catch-weight for the fight, then he’ll be a zombie after the 4th. Cotto can then knocked out Lemieux and take credit for knocking out the Canadian earlier than Golovkin did, albeit with the help of a strength-draining catch-weight handicap.

Cotto-Lemieux isn’t a lock for December 2. They would still need to negotiate the fight, discuss the likely catch-weight required, and then the purse split. With this being Cotto’s last fight of his 16-year pro career, he’s probably going to want to get the purse split titled in his favor. Lemieux, 28, isn’t a pay-per-view draw, so he’s not going to be able to push for too big of a split or else he’ll lose the fight with Cotto altogether.

This is a size mismatch. Lemieux is way too big for Cotto. It’s not just size though. It’s a power mismatch too. Lemieux hits so incredibly hard, and Cotto is not likely going to be able to take too many of the Canadian fighter’s power shots before he starts cutting up and puffing up. It might not even come to that. Lemieux has the kind of power to knock Cotto out cold like he did recently against Curtis Stevens. That was brutal to watch Lemieux knock Stevens out in the 3rd round in their fight on March 11. In Lemieux’s last fight, he defeated Marcos Reyes by a 10 round unanimous decision in May 6 on the undercard of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. card on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lemieux vs. Reyes was the fight of the night. It greatly surpassed the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight in terms of excitement. The boxing fans at ringside loved the fight, as Lemieux hit Reyes with everything but the kitchen sink, and the tough Mexican fighter took it all and continued to fight hard through the entire 10 round fight. Lemieux easily won the fight, but he suffered a shoulder injury and that was probably the only reason Reyes survived to the final bell.

It looks like Cotto isn’t interested in facing lightweight Mikey Garcia for his fight in December. It’s perhaps for the best that Cotto not take that fight. You can’t see Cotto vs. Mikey Garcia on PPV. Only the hardcore boxing fans know who Mikey Garcia is. It would look bad for Cotto that he’s finishing his career fighting a lightweight, who would need to move up 3 divisions to fight him at 154. Cotto wouldn’t move down to 147 for a fight against Mikey Garcia, and I don’t think he would cut weight to make 150 either. Mikey doesn’t have the cache to force him to drop weight.

Cotto is going to likely push for a catch-weight to drain Lemieux to make the fight fair. Without a catch-weight, Cotto will end up at risk of being knocked cold by Lemieux. There’s an enormous difference in size, power and youth between the two fighters. Lemieux hits harder than anyone Cotto ever faced before, including Canelo. Cotto has never had to taste the kind of power that Lemieux has.

Lemieux is probably the hardest puncher in the middleweight division right now. Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Danny Jacobs are all good punchers, but Lemieux is on a different level. He’s got unreal power in either hand. Boxing fans mistakenly think Lemieux only hits hard with his left hook. That’s not true. Lemieux’s right hand is devastating when he’s close enough to land it.

Lemieux won the IBF World middleweight title in beating Hassan N’Dam by a 12 round unanimous decision on June 20, 2015. Rather than defend the title, Lemieux fought Gennady Golovkin in unification later that year and was stopped in the 8th round on October 17, 2015 in a fight televised on HBO PPV.