Miguel Cotto

Miguel Cotto successfully defended his lineal and WBC Middleweight Championships with a fourth-round knockout of former champion Daniel Geale on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The fight was over pretty much from the moment it started before an announced crowd of 12,157 pro-Cotto fans. 

Cotto (40-4, 33 KO) was dominant from the opening bell. He ripped vicious hooks to Geale's midsection in the opening round and continued that trend in each frame that followed. 

The Puerto Rican felled his man twice in the fourth, prompting referee Harvey Dock to intervene and stop the carnage at 1:28 of the round.

By that point the result was academic.

Geale (31-4, 16 KO) looked like an absolute shell of the fighter who held a share of the middleweight crown on multiple occasions, most recently in 2013. He appeared badly weight drained by having to cut off 10-plus pounds in the week before the fight to meet the 157-pound catchweight.

Cotto will likely face Saul "Canelo" Alvarez in a huge pay-per-view showdown in the fall.

Asked by HBO's Max Kellerman in the ring after the knockout, Cotto took a long pause before responding to a question about whether he'd like to face WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who was sitting ringside. 

Cotto eventually responded that he'd face him "if he's available" after Canelo.

He also addressed his status as a middleweight, asking Kellerman if he felt he was a true 160-pound fighter after weighing in at 153.6 pounds—below the junior-middleweight limit—on Friday. 

You didn't have to read too far between the lines to get your answer to that question.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeBoxing. 

Boxing has a new buzzword.

It’s one that threatens to further cheapen the validity of dozens of already-suspect world championships and further muddies the waters for fans who constantly struggle with the sordid politics and under-the-table deals that dominate the sport.

Catchweight.

Miguel Cotto defends his lineal and WBC Middleweight Championships against Daniel Geale Saturday night at the Barclays Center (10:30 p.m. ET/HBO) in a bout that will be contested at a contracted weight of 157 pounds, three shy of the middleweight limit.

Cotto’s first defense of the 160-pound title comes just about a year after he lifted it from Sergio Martinez at Madison Square Garden in a fight also contested within the middleweight division but below the weight limit.

Are you spotting a trend here?

Cotto has received frequent and harsh criticism from fans and in the media for his outright refusal to defend his middleweight crown against a full-blown middleweight in this fight.

Geale, a multitime middleweight champion, has always struggled to make the divisional limit. He was 167.5 pounds at the WBC’s mandatory weight check seven days prior to the fight, leading to speculation that he might not make weight.

What happens then?

A conundrum that could’ve been avoided without all this catchweight nonsense.

The WBC—like all sanctioning bodies—recognizes 160 pounds as the middleweight limit. It’s not bound by any other contract weights and should still sanction the fight and place the green belt up for grabs.

Steve Kim of UCNLive tweeted on Tuesday night that he’d been informed by Geale’s promoter Gary Shaw that no financial penalty for missing weight was written into the contracts.

But would Cotto go through with the fight if Geale misses? 

Or would he leave everyone in the lurch and take his ball and go home?

It’s a pretty high-stakes game of chicken, and the result is anything but guaranteed when dealing with a personality as self-assured and demanding as Cotto can be.

For all the criticism and questions, Cotto remains completely unapologetic about requiring catchweights and warns that anyone—presumably Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin—who wants to face him will have to accept them as part of his terms or hit the road.

“I had to do (a catchweight) at this particular time and anyone who wants to fight me must accept a catchweight or otherwise there is no fight,” Cotto said, per Andreas Hale of The Ring Magazine.

Fair.

Nobody is saying that Cotto—a future Hall of Famer who has never been anything less than a warrior in the ring—hasn’t earned the right to dictate his terms. He’s entitled to whatever his opponents will concede.

And nobody is saying that catchweights don’t have their place in boxing.

They’re designed to bridge the gap between fighters in separate weight divisions who are looking to compete on the most level playing field possible.

The opposite of what's happening here.

Cotto’s been on that side of the equation.

He fought Manny Pacquiao at 145 pounds back in 2009, but the situations were very different.

Pacquiao was a smaller fighter coming up in weight—he had fought Oscar De La Hoya at 142 pounds but was campaigning mostly at 140 and below—and Cotto hasn’t fought below 154 since.

That weight gap needed to be resolved.

But catchweights aren’t designed—or they shouldn’t be—to do what Cotto’s done here: effectively carve out a new division south of 160 pounds while holding a championship hostage from anyone not willing to provide him with a competitive advantage.

Shaw said as much during Wednesday’s final press conference ahead of the fight.

“We’re going to make the weight. It’s going to be tough,” he said.

“I believe that if a fighter wants to fight at any weight that he wants to fight at, he has that opportunity, but he shouldn’t stop the opponent from fighting at the sanctioned weight which in this case is 160.”

It’s fine to dismiss Shaw and Geale’s concerns as sour grapes only arrived at after the fact.

And to a certain extent that’s true.

Geale knew what was in the contract.

He knew that making 157 pounds would be a struggle, and he knew that agreeing would cede some level of competitive edge to the champion.

Geale took the fight because it provided an opportunity he wasn't going to get anywhere else: the ability to fight for another world title less than a year removed from Golovkin tattooing him inside three rounds at Madison Square Garden. 

But being the champion is supposed to mean you’re the best fighter in the division, not in whatever arbitrary weight class you’ve decided to create on a fight-by-fight basis.

And not when you’re doing it for the express purpose of masquerading as the legitimate titleholder without any real intention of defending that championship on a level playing field.

This type of mess is bad for boxing.

It doesn't do anyone any real good.

Cotto gets an advantage but looks bad. His title becomes just a little bit more meaningless, and Geale needs to rip off 10 pounds in a week, possibly compromising his in-ring ability.

You want to fight at 152 pounds? Or 156 pounds? Or anywhere else not recognized by the sanctioning bodies that hand out championship belts like candy on Halloween as a legitimate weight befitting its own 20-plus titles?

Go right ahead.

But don’t gum up the works and compromise the integrity of the competition by making world championships any less meaningful than they’ve already become.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeBoxing. 

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.

Miguel "Junito" Cotto (39-4, 32 KO) is set to take on Daniel "The Real Deal" Geale (31-3, 16 KO) on Saturday night at the Barclays Center...I think. The fight has been agreed upon by all parties, and Cotto's WBC middleweight title would be on the line, but there's questions as to whether Geale can make the 157-pound catchweight.

SweetScience.com editor Michael Woods spoke to Geale's promoter Gary Shaw. Woods tweeted this message from Shaw on Wednesday:

Shaw said Geale is maybe 166 today, will get to 157 tho. Has aboriginal method of cutting, he says

— Michael Woods (@Woodsy1069) June 3, 2015

What happens if Geale can't make weight? Per Victor Salazar of Boxing Scene, Geale won't be assessed a financial penalty, but Cotto's trainer Freddie Roach says that the champion's camp has backups in place in the event the challenger is overweight. 

All this drama and the opening bell hasn't even rung. Whomever Cotto fights on Saturday night, here's how you can watch it.

When: Saturday, June 6 at 10:30 p.m. ET

Where: Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York

TV: HBO

Live Stream: BoxNation (Region Restricted)

The Press Conference

Geale and his camp attended the press conference without issue, but as most would expect, his weight was a prominent topic. Here's highlights of the final press conference from World Boxing News on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfbx61RhiuU

What Cotto Stands to Gain

By most accounts, Cotto is expected to beat Geale handily. Per Odds Shark, the champion is a 1-10 favorite.

Because of that, the Puerto Rican legend isn't in line to add much to his legacy beyond another victory should he win. Stopping Geale would be somewhat notable considering the Australian is a legit middleweight—when he fights at 160—and that's also the manner in which Gennady Golovkin beat him.

With Cotto being aligned with Golovkin for a future bout—as well as with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez—a spectacular showing could help to raise the potential payday in Cotto's next fight.

What Geale Stands to Gain

Beating Cotto would be a rather significant upset, and it would pave the way for Geale to have another solid payday in his next fight—perhaps against Canelo, should the Mexican superstar decide to move up to middleweight. 

While those opportunities would likely present themselves for Geale, many of the informed members of the boxing community would likely downgrade the approval rating of the Real Deal's win.

In essence, Cotto is an overblown junior welterweight who stands 5'7". He is only fighting near 160 pounds because he may lack the discipline required to consistently make 147 pounds—which is the highest weight class he should be in.

A Geale win might be viewed in some circles as more of a result of Cotto being too old and shopworn, rather than the challenger's skill and determination.

What Cotto Stands to Lose

Geale is not known as a powerful puncher. In his career, he's compiled just 16 wins by stoppage and one in the last four-and-a-half years. Cotto has always been tough and rugged, thus this is a fight he's set up to win. 

That's why a loss would be so bad for him.

A defeat would kill Cotto's shot at a major payday against Canelo and/or GGG. Lastly, he'd be pelted with questions about retiring after losing the title to an 11-2 underdog.

What Geale Stands to Lose

Geale is fighting with house money. This is a fight no one expects him to win, so he should be free of pressure. Whether that leads to the biggest win of his career remains to be seen.

Prediction

Despite the fact that Cotto is fighting well above his natural weight class, he's facing a fighter who doesn't have enough power to expose him. This dynamic will be even more prominent with Geale likely struggling to make 157 pounds. 

Cotto, on the other hand, has proved he's capable of hurting fighters in this weight region. He battered a gimpy and washed-up Sergio Martinez to win the title in June 2014, and he destroyed Delvin Rodriguez in the fight before that.

Roach was Cotto's trainer in both fights, and the champion looked sharp and strong. Cotto will launch a vicious body attack on Geale from the outset and have the challenger finished by the eighth round.

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Miguel Cotto defends the lineal middleweight championship of the world on Saturday night against Daniel Geale at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. HBO will telecast the bout live.

But Cotto is far and away the worst lineal champion in all of boxing. Of the eight current boxers holding nine lineal championships in the sport at the moment, per the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (Floyd Mayweather Jr. is both welterweight and junior middleweight champion), Cotto is the one who least deserves acclaim for it.

Let’s get something out of the way right from the beginning. All the fighters who are lineal champions, including Cotto, became so by what they did inside a boxing ring. Unlike alphabet champions, the likes of the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO, only losing inside the ring or a period of inactivity within the division can lead to the end of a lineal championship reign.

Cotto defeated Sergio Martinez in June 2014 to seize the middleweight throne. Martinez became champion in 2010 by knocking off Kelly Pavlik and held the title until Cotto stopped him in Round 10 of their fight last year.

But here’s the problem with Cotto’s middleweight championship: He is not really a middleweight. The former junior welterweight has yet to face opposition at the full divisional contract weight of 160 pounds, and he does not appear intent on ever doing so.

When Cotto faced Martinez last year, he forced the aging champion to come down to 159 pounds. While one pound probably didn’t make much of a difference in the 10-round shellacking, Cotto has waited a full year to defend his title against Geale.

And you guessed it, the contracted weight for the Geale fight is 157 pounds.

None of those things are necessarily an indictment of Cotto on their own. Catchweights in boxing are nothing new and will continue to happen so long as star fighters in any given promotion continue to feel they must get every single advantage they can possibly muster.

But Cotto’s case is also plagued by the way he won the title in the first place as well as what he’s done with it since.

He should be commended for the risk he took fighting Martinez last year. There was no reason before the fight that should have given anyone a strong belief that Cotto was going to do what he did against the longtime middleweight champion.

Cotto was the smaller man moving up to face a bigger, stronger and more athletic southpaw who told Bleacher Report he had every intention of knocking the Puerto Rican out.

But in hindsight, Martinez, age 39 at the time, was damaged goods.

His previously injured knee seemed shaky from the very start of the bout. Cotto took full advantage of it, landing powerful shots to have him reeling right from the start, and then systematically destroyed Martinez over the next nine rounds of the fight.

The one who takes risks gets rewards. Had Cotto calculated wrong, it’s likely Martinez would have been the victor, but instead Cotto came away the lineal middleweight champion of the world.

Good for him.

But since that fight, he’s made a mockery of perhaps the second-most celebrated boxing title in the entire world (behind heavyweight).

According to ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael, Cotto stalled talks long enough earlier this year to make fellow megastar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez seek other options. Alvarez ultimately ended up facing and defeating brawler James Kirkland in May to stay busy.

Meanwhile, Cotto remained inactive.

And instead of facing the clear top middleweight contender in the world, WBA champion Gennady Golovkin, Cotto chose instead to face Geale, a former middleweight belt holder Golovkin knocked out last year in just three rounds.

Cotto’s comments as of late have only made things worse. According to BoxingScene.com’s Jordan Moskowitz, Cotto is not in a hurry to face Golovkin anytime soon, and he doesn’t seem in a hurry to face Alvarez in a consolation bout either.

None of these things alone would make him the worst example of a lineal champion in boxing, but all of them together indicate the future Hall of Famer doesn’t deserve the acclaim usually reserved for such titleholders.

Yes, Cotto is the lineal middleweight champion of the world. Yes, he will likely remain so until someone defeats him in the ring, or he decides to retire.

These two things are true and fine.

But Cotto won’t really deserve his lineal middleweight championship until he faces and defeats a top middleweight contender who is not old and injured like Martinez and not forced to fight under the middleweight limit of 160 pounds.

That doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon.

 

Note: Kelsey McCarson is a member of the TBRB.

You can count Miguel Cotto—and yours truly—among the few people who felt that the Puerto Rican legend had a big chance of strolling into New York’s Madison Square Garden last June 7 and walking out as middleweight champion of the world.

Cotto made his presence known just over a minute into the fight when he dropped defending lineal and WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez flat on his face.

Things only got worse for the Argentine, who tasted the canvas twice more in the opening stanza and was forced to retire on his stool after nine brutally one-sided rounds.

It was an epic performance from Cotto, a future Hall of Famer who became Puerto Rico’s first four-division world champion, but one that has quickly faded into the wind after a year of hemming and hawing but no follow-up performances.

Cotto had this to say about his future plans, per Puerto Rican news outlet El Nuevo Dia (h/t Miguel Rivera of BoxingScene.com):

[I signed] a three fight [deal] with Roc Nation. We have a date of June 6 and right now we are evaluating [the options] and we'll see which is the best opponent for that date. I will speak with Freddie and we will choose the best name. I do not know [who it may be], but I expect it to be for the title. It all depends on how big the opponent [will be in name] and that will define whether this will be a pay-per-view or not

The most likely contender to land the first fight of that three-fight deal appears to be IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius “K9” Bundrage or little-known Argentine middleweight Jorge Sebastian Heiland.

Neither one is likely to herald the coming of tremendous praise from boxing fans who are tired of star fighters taking the path of least resistance to belts and larger-than-life paydays.

Cotto has never been one to veer from a challenge, and he’s never been tarred with anything close to the dreaded “ducker” label in a career marked by bouts against many good, great and elite fighters.

But what of this “for the title” and “whether this will be a pay-per-view or not” stuff?

The title that Cotto is obviously referring to is the lineal—the man who beat the man—and WBC Middleweight Championship that he took from Martinez.

Clearly, the title has lost some of its luster in light of the meteoric rise of Kazakh knockout machine—and possibly boogeyman that you tell children hides under the bed—Gennady Golovkin.

Golovkin, regardless of "who-beat-the-man" considerations, is clearly the best fighter in the middleweight division. You’re not going to find a ton of legitimate debate on that question.

Fans want to see Cotto defend his title against 160 pounds of Central Asian destruction, should the Puerto Rican champion decide to continue his probably ill-fated run in one of boxing’s glamour divisions.

But that doesn’t seem terribly likely.

And there’s the essential conundrum.

You can’t defend the title against K9 or Heiland, a fighter with a 25-4-2 record that includes one significant win—a knockout of faded former contender Matthew Macklin—without raising a few eyebrows.

You can defend a belt, yes, but not the title.

Not against those guys.

And there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that either of those fights lands on PPV.

If Cotto vs. Martinez only did 350,000 PPV buys—in a fight with historical implications and boxers from fight-crazed nations—what do you think fights with the tricky-but-not-aesthetically-pleasing K9 or the unknown Heiland will draw?

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Money may not be the overarching consideration for Cotto, who, per Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, received a $5 million signing bonus in his contract, but you can bet it will be for whichever network decides to televise the fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9nd4Li322c

We’d be understating the nature of the situation quite a bit if we just said that Cotto’s in-ring decisions—his choice of promoter is irrelevant—over the past nine months have been curious.

There were the failed negotiations for a seemingly inevitable superfight with Mexican sensation Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on HBO PPV.

If we could hit the rewind button to the end of 2014 and survey 100 boxing fans by asking them which fight was more likely—Cotto vs. Canelo or Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao—you could safely bet the former would outweigh the latter by a sizable margin.

But here we are.

Mayweather and Pacquiao will meet on May 2.

Canelo will meet James Kirkland a week later, and Cotto will fight TBA a month after that.

Boxing can be a funny game, can’t it?

Negotiations for a Puerto Rico vs. Mexico showdown for the middleweight championship fell apart just days into the new year, and nobody is quite sure exactly why that happened.

It’s possible that Cotto was unwilling to commit, given the potential for a lucrative rematch with Mayweather, who was still opponent-searching at that point. Or maybe his money demands weren’t met. Or it could be something else.

Whatever the case may be, if Mayweather was the platinum plan and Canelo was the gold, K9 or Heiland is the “gold ring” you get out of a 25-cent machine outside the supermarket.

Unduly harsh? Maybe.

But Cotto is the middleweight champion, and if he wants to continue holding that distinction, he needs to prove it against the best challengers available.

That's Golovkin. Or even Canelo, who has never fought at middleweight but is one of the biggest names in the sport and provides a compelling challenge.

No more free passes.

Boxing has a problem.

Sure, it’s not the biggest problem, and it won’t be the thing that destroys the sport, but it’s something of an annoyance that limits fighters and prevents fans from seeing many fights that are in high demand.

In an era dominated by alphabet championships, where the same sanctioning organization will often crown multiple world champions at the same weight, lineal championships must mean something.

Being the man who beat the man makes you the man. It’s a simple concept, and far easier for fans to follow than figuring out who holds some alphabet-soup organization’s interim, super, diamond or regular world championship this week.

But what happens if the man who beat the man refuses to fight the man believed to have the best shot at beating the man?

Convoluted enough for you?

Let’s make it easier with a pair of possibly unequal examples that illustrate this point, which is that if you refuse to fight your undisputed top challenger, you cease to be the man.

Adonis Stevenson, light heavyweight, and Miguel Cotto, middleweight, both hold lineal championships at their weights. Both earned that title by beating—in impressive fashion—the previous occupants of that throne.

But neither is the best fighter at his weight.

Those titles belong to Sergey Kovalev and Gennady Golovkin, a pair of fighters who have won the people’s championship to go along with their increasingly large collections of alphabet belts.

Stevenson took the title from Chad Dawson—who had taken it from Bernard Hopkins—with one big shot in a single round at Montreal’s Bell Centre in 2013.

He was named Fighter of the Year by both The Ring Magazine and Sports Illustrated in 2013.

Stevenson was also named Breakout Fighter of the Year by Bleacher Report for a campaign that saw knockouts of Dawson, former titlist Tavoris Cloud and Tony Bellew, the latter of which set the stage for a unification fight with Kovalev.

The Haitian-turned-Canadian fighter never seemed in love with the idea of facing the Krusher, giving HBO’s Max Kellerman some verbal gymnastics in the ring after the Bellew fight about how he’d rather face someone—anyone—else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RE-CZRgTwM

Stevenson, of course, did just that by jumping ship to Showtime and signing with uber-adviser Al Haymon. The move was expected to be a prelude to a unification fight—perhaps just as lucrative and far less physically threatening—against Hopkins.

But Hopkins grew tired of waiting for Stevenson’s camp and made his own move across network lines, returning to HBO for his own showdown against Kovalev.

Stevenson struggled in his his Showtime debut against Andrzej Fonfara, a solid but not top-level contender, and then moved on to other things.

With Kovalev and Hopkins set to unify on HBO and the lineal champ without a fight of significance, speculation turned to former champ Jean Pascal.

Stevenson-Pascal would’ve been a massive showdown in fight-crazed Montreal, where Pascal is a bigger star, but it fell apart.

If you believe Pascal’s people, the central issue was related to money and difficulty dealing with the champion’s demands.

Pascal's promoter Greg Leon, per Rick Reeno of BoxingScene.com, didn't mince any words when it came to his dissatisfaction in dealing with Stevenson:

I'm going to send a letter to the Ring Magazine for Adonis Stevenson to be stripped of that title. He doesn't deserve it. Pascal fought Hopkins twice, he's ready to fight Kovalev. Kovalev fought Hopkins and now he's ready to fight Pascal. Who's the only guy missing? The Ring Magazine champion? He should be stripped for [being a] coward.

Kovalev, once again the beneficiary of Stevenson’s unwillingness to make big fights with big fighters, snatched up the bout with Pascal, went on the road to Montreal and knocked him out in an all-action war.

Both guys' stock rose in that performance and a rematch is possible.

Stevenson?

He knocked out the completely unknown and overmatched Dmitry Sukhotsky (who?) on a Friday night last December to retain his increasingly meaningless title.

Let’s recap.

Stevenson, the lineal champ, beat Fonfara, Sukhotsky and is slated to defend against Sakio Bika—not a light heavyweight—on April 4 on Premier Boxing Champions’ CBS debut.

Kovalev, the IBF, WBA and WBO champion, knocked down and dominated Hopkins and became the first man to drop and stop Pascal in one of the better fights you’ll see this year.

Stevenson has blustered quite a bit about facing Kovalev—coincidentally, since he moved to Showtime—and, per HBO’s broadcast of Kovalev-Pascal on Saturday night, said he would do whatever it took to make the fight happen now.

Maybe he’s serious this time. Or maybe it’s more talk from a man who, while lineal champion, no longer can lay legitimate claim to being the man to beat at his weight.

Kovalev may not be the man who beat the man, but that’s because the man refused to fight him, or anyone else of consequence for that matter.

But he is most certainly the man to beat.

What about Cotto?

Now, this case is a bit trickier, mainly because the Puerto Rican legend, who wants less-than-zero part of Golovkin, isn’t a true middleweight. So maybe he isn’t subjected to the same rules as Stevenson?

Cotto barely tipped the scales above the junior middleweight limit for a historic challenge of Sergio Martinez last June at Madison Square Garden.

A solid 155 pounds, Cotto was faster, stronger and more determined, blowing out the Argentine to become the first Puerto Rican four-division world champion.

A planned May fight with Canelo Alvarez, which most boxing insiders felt was a foregone conclusion as negotiations entered the advanced stages, fell through, and Cotto has since had a messy falling out with longtime promoters Top Rank.

Bob Arum’s company has promoted all but two of Cotto’s fights, including his middleweight-title victory over Martinez, but the future Hall of Famer worked on a fight-by-fight contract. 

He recently signed a long-term deal with rap mogul Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports to serve as his promoter, both inside and outside the ring, and has been reluctant to say whether or not he’s interested in facing GGG.

Golovkin is considered to be among the fastest-rising superstars in the sport, and his 19 consecutive knockout victories have already positioned him atop many people’s rankings at 160 pounds.

Abel Sanchez, GGG's outspoken trainer, doesn’t believe the fight will happen, per David Greisman of BoxingScene.com:

We can’t kidnap him [Cotto] and force him to get in the ring. He in his mind knows, and Freddie [Roach] knows that Golovkin is too much for him and will stop him in less than five rounds. They’re not going to take a chance on that. Cotto’s had a great career. There’s no reason, unless he really wants to prove that he’s a middleweight. There’s no reason to get in the ring with Golovkin. Golovkin will destroy him.

There’s a lot of logic in that statement.

Cotto has never had the reputation as a ducker. He’s faced many of the good, great and elite fighters of his era, including Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Shane Mosley and Martinez.

But he’s not a middleweight, and you can understand his reluctance to face the most feared puncher in the game if other options are available.

What you can’t understand would be a desire to continue calling himself the legitimate middleweight champion of the world while simultaneously passing up his top challenger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDuWyx6A-LA

Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports reported last week that Cotto received a $5 million signing bonus for joining Roc Nation, and as a result can select a foe for his next fight who might not make as lucrative a match.

The money is already in the bank.

Cornelius “K9” Bundrage, a junior middleweight titlist, appears to be the top contender to land a fight nobody has been demanding.

Nobody.

Now, if that fight comes with Cotto vacating his title at 160 pounds—seemingly an option—then you can say he dodged Golovkin, but at least he’s not clogging up the machinery of the sport.

GGG will fight someone for the vacant title, likely win, and we’ll all be on our way.

But if the powers that be try and sanction that as some sort of legitimate middleweight championship fight, it will be exposed as a farce.

Not Canelo.

Not GGG.

K9 Bundrage?

No.

Then we’re in Stevenson territory, and Cotto no longer gets a free pass.

Either defend your title or give it up to somebody who will.

Either be the man or get out of the way.

So it is finally happening—Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will go toe-to-toe on May 2.

The long-awaited announcement confirmed the fight between the two has ramifications on more than just their bank accounts.

Over in Britain, a pair of welterweights no doubt would have paid special attention to the confirmation that the biggest names in their division are going to do battle. Amir Khan referenced the fight in a recent tweet:

Mayweather announces he's fighting Manny Pacquiao. Good luck guys. A fight we all been waiting for.

— Amir Khan (@amirkingkhan) February 20, 2015

Amir Khan had made no secret of his desire to take on Mayweather, insisting after his victory over Devon Alexander in December 2014 that he had “earned” a shot at the “best boxer in the world,” per BBC Sport.

He was also willing to sign up for a bout with Pacquiao, a man he knows plenty about following their time together working at trainer Freddie Roach’s gym.

Now, though, those options are no longer on the table for the Bolton boxer, at least not in the very near future.

So what about a domestic clash with Kell Brook instead?

Via Twitter, it certainly seems the British public would like to see it happen at some stage during the upcoming summer:

Amir Khan v Kell Brook would be a huge fight, easily sells out wembly and I'd deffo be going. @EddieHearn please make it happen. #KhanBrook

— Hassan (@HasssanKingKhan) February 21, 2015

https://twitter.com/AlexJGomes/status/569076771745861633

With Mayweather vs Paquiao now set it surely makes sense that @AmirKingKhan fights @SpecialKBrook this summer?! @EddieHearn

— michael coudray (@couge0102) February 21, 2015

Khan, per the Daily Mirror, said at the start of February that Brook was an option, saying: "It would bring a lot of money for him to fight me. But he's my third choice. You know who the first two are: Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao."

But, before Brook can even contemplate a potential stadium showdown with his compatriot, he must first successfully retain his IBF title against Jo Jo Dan on Mar. 28 in Sheffield.

The first defence of the belt, one he claimed last year by out-pointing Shawn Porter, gives Brook the perfect chance to show off the spoils in his home city.

While he is focused on Dan, The Special One admits he expects to face Khan at some stage in his career, telling Bleacher Report: “I think it’s too big of a fight not to happen. But he’s doing his thing, and I’m doing mine. If our paths cross then they cross.”

Despite previously proclaiming Brook was third choice, Khan seems to have adjusted his sights.

He has shifted his focus to a bigger name. Bigger in that he wants the boxer who currently holds the WBC middleweight title, as he noted on Twitter:

Khan v @RealMiguelCotto I'd take that fight in a heartbeat at catch weight 155lbs for the @WBCBoxing Middleweight title

— Amir Khan (@amirkingkhan) February 8, 2015

Stylistically cotto would be a great fight for me. He's a great champion. Just imagine that fight in UK.

— Amir Khan (@amirkingkhan) February 8, 2015

Cotto–who became a world champion at a fourth different weight by defeating Sergio Martinez—is not quite in the same league as Mayweather or Pacquiao, having lost to both men in his pro career.

However, he is still a superstar in the sport who guarantees a handsome pay day.

A fight with Khan, more likely at a venue somewhere in the United States rather than in Britain, would be both intriguing and exciting for the viewers.

Brook’s camp, meanwhile, are not putting all their eggs in the Khan basket.

They have already begun working on a potential deal with another modern-day legend: Juan Manuel Marquez.

Promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed talks have already taken place with the Mexican's representatives, telling Sky Sports: “I believe a Marquez-Brook fight at Bramall Lane is a massive fight this summer."

In the same story Hearn also brings up the name of Brandon Rios, though he tellingly adds: “Amir Khan remains the fight we would love.”

So too would many others. Perhaps now, with Mayweather and Pacquiao signed, sealed and delivered, it may be closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Matchmaking in boxing can often be like a line of dominoes—once the first one falls, the other pieces follow.

In the world of boxing there are only a few weekends scattered throughout the year when casual fans are intrigued by a big fight. But on May 2, 2015, fight fans might get all those monumental bouts in one night.

Saul "Canelo" Alvarez has already agreed to terms to square off with Miguel Cotto on that first weekend of May. However, it is Floyd Mayweather who has consistently fought in September and on Cinco de Mayo weekend these past couple of years.

This begs the question: If Mayweather is to fight on the same night as Alvarez (on different networks), does he need to fight Manny Pacquiao in order to defeat Canelo in the war for pay-per-view buys?

The current pound-for-pound champ is the king of pay-per-view buys, but the numbers generated in his last two fights have fallen short of expectations. In his first fight with Marcos Maidana the event did roughly 900,000 buys, and in the rematch approximately 925,000 paid to see the fight. These figures are south of the regular one million buys or more that "Money" is accustomed to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThoKpCEFASE

The 37-year-old’s biggest fight came against the man he is now competing with outside the ring, Alvarez. The bout between those two reeled in approximately 2.2 million buys, and was the highest grossing fight in history. A big part of those numbers can be attributed to Canelo’s name recognition and extensive fanbase in Mexico.

The 24-year-old rising star has continued to build his brand by frequently fighting and winning on pay-per-view. In his most recent bout he edged out a close victory against the slick Cuban southpaw, Erislandy Lara. And prior to that fight, he dismantled fellow countryman Alfredo Angulo. Those fights generated 300,000 and 350,000 buys respectively.

Now, we turn to Cotto, another one of the most recognizable names in the sport. The 34-year-old is no stranger to pay-per-view fights, as he has fought some of the biggest names on that platform. His fight with Pacquiao generated roughly 1.25 million buys, and his fight with Money drew 1.5 million buys—one of Mayweather’s top-grossing fights.

Most recently, Cotto’s highly anticipated fight with Sergio Martinez took in about 300,000 pay-per-view buys, which was considered short of expectations.

Cotto vs. Alvarez is one of the biggest fights that can be made in the sport, maybe only behind Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. So, if Mayweather is to fight someone besides Pacquiao in May, can he really do bigger numbers than that fight by himself? Mayweather seems to think so, as he told Fight Hype last month.

If they feel like they can compete, well then let's see. ... When you're talking boxing, you're talking Mayweather, man. We need to take Canelo's last fight and look at his pay-per-view numbers and take Cotto's last fight and look at his pay-per-view numbers, put 'em together and see who done better numbers. And see what they charge for the fight also.

After Alvarez signed a new multimillion dollar contract to fight on HBO, he was set on fighting on December 6 against Joshua Clottey. But an ankle injury put a halt to that bout, so the young boxing star was content to rest up until spring of 2015.

Golden Boy Promoter Oscar De La Hoya told Fight Corner News last month that Canelo was adamant to fight on the May 2 weekend and would fight on that date regardless of what day Mayweather decided to fight: “Regardless. Try talking a 24-year-old, who is already an icon in Mexico, to move from Cinco de Mayo—it’s impossible. I am more than confident that Canelo is going to go on that weekend.”

The weekend holds a lot of significance for Alvarez because of the immense Mexican fanbase which enjoys watching fights on that holiday.

According to Raimundo Ortiz of Sports World News, Alvarez had this to say about fighting on May 2: "Those are the Mexican holidays, and they belong to the Mexican fighters. Everybody knows those are the Mexican holidays and the traditional dates for the Mexican fighters."

But Mayweather is of the belief that Cinco de Mayo isn’t just for Mexican fights, as he told Chris Williams of Boxing News 24, “When I hear Cinco de Mayo is just for the Mexicans, the last time I checked any holiday is for anyone.”

Mayweather does bring up a good point—he has shown that he can be highly successful on the first weekend of May without having a Mexican fighter in the other corner. But he does have to take into account the support Canelo draws from the Mexican fans, which has proved to be substantial in previous fights.

Another component that should be noted, is that the Cotto-Alvarez matchup features the heated Puerto Rican vs. Mexican boxing rivalry, which is one of the best in the sport.

With all of those factors in play for that major event, it makes it increasingly difficult for Mayweather. If he were to settle for a fight with Amir Khan, Keith Thurman or any other adequate name in the division—but not stellar—would he be able to compete on pay-per-view?

It’s hard to say, but if the declining numbers are indicative of anything it's that fans are getting fed up with dull, predictable matchups.

If Mayweather is concerned about pay-per-view sales, it would be in his best interest to fight Pacquiao, which may be the only fight capable of selling as well as Cotto-Alvarez, even though Mayweather is the top draw in the sport.

The 37-year-old Las Vegas native hates to lose; though he may not lose inside the ring, there’s a decent chance he could lose the pay-per-view battle—and that could be what finally pushes the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight.

De La Hoya said the only way that Canelo would move off that date is if the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight were to transpire.

That should provide more of an incentive for Money to make this massive fight. If the Pacquiao fight isn’t made on that date, he will have an uphill battle on his hands to promote a fight with someone who will be inferior in terms of skills and name recognition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbUPUAzVaRU

The Filipino icon has also recently suffered a lull in the pay-per-view numbers, as he brought in roughly 300,000 buys against the little known and far outclassed Chris Algieri. The figure was one of the worst since early in Pacquiao's pay-per-view career. 

Despite the drop in pay-per-view buys, Pacquiao looked sharp, as he dropped the New York native six times in their November bout. The performance got fans talking about the matchup that still hasn't come to fruition between the sport's two biggest draws.

Traction has once again picked up on this megafight between the two welterweight champions, as they have exchanged repeated barbs at each other over social media.

But despite the heated rhetoric, a lot of the finer details would still have to be worked out. The venue would more than likely be the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, but which network would host the major event could get tricky.

Mayweather has two fights left on his six-fight contract with Showtime, while Pacquiao has been primarily an HBO fighter. The only time "Pac-Man" has fought on Showtime was in 2011 against Shane Mosley.

So if negations were to maturate, the most likely scenario would be for Pacquiao to go to Showtime for the fight. The other alternative could be a scenario like the one used for the Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis fight, where HBO and Showtime make a collective effort to host the bout. But the latter would only be possible if Canelo moved off that date, since he is now under the HBO banner.

The increasing pressure from another big boxing star fighting on the same date could incline the flamboyant Mayweather into taking the biggest fight out there, and there is no one bigger than Pacquiao.

Follow Evan @Emoneyball22