LAS VEGAS ? Oscar De La Hoya, who knows as much about selling pay-per-view as just about anyone on the planet, predicted last week that the card at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Saturday headlined by Miguel Cotto against Canelo Alvarez will sell more than 1.5 million units.
De La Hoya knew full well what he was doing when he made that outlandish prediction. De La Hoya, an inveterate golfer, has a better chance to win The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship than Cotto-Alvarez has of hitting 1.5 million sales.
It?s not going to come close, and De La Hoya knows it. But by predicting such an outrageously high number, he was attempting to create some hype.
The bout in the ring is one of the best that can be made in boxing, featuring two elite fighters, and it promises a tremendous amount of action.
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Miguel Cotto was stripped of his WBC middleweight title Tuesday. (Getty Images) The promotion, though, has been plagued by missteps and bad luck. Cotto hasn?t been particularly cooperative with the media, which is never a good thing.
But that?s nothing compared to what happened Tuesday. The WBC announced that it had stripped Cotto of his championship after it couldn?t come to terms on sanctioning fees.
This is all boxing politics, and the public has long since stopped caring. This case, though, is a bit different for a number of reasons.
You may remember in May, when Gennady Golovkin defeated Willie Monroe in Inglewood, Calif., that the WBC announced that the winner of the Cotto-Alvarez bout would have to next defend the belt against Golovkin, who holds its interim middleweight title.
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Fans reacted with glee, because if there was a fight that they wanted to see more than Cotto-Alvarez, it was probably the winner against Golovkin. The WBC?s decision in May meant that fans could look forward to not one, but two sensational fights.
Fast-forward six months, and it?s a complete mess. Cotto essentially was going to have to pay $1.1 million to comply with all of the WBC?s rules regarding sanctioning. It?s complex, and not worth a deep dive, but he was being asked to pay $300,000 for the right to fight Alvarez for the title, and then another $800,000 to Golovkin as step-aside money.
Cotto balked, knowing that the fight could go on with or without the WBC belt on the line and that it wouldn?t change fan interest at all.
Except for one thing: Boxing writers who cover these sorts of disputes for a living have difficulty understanding the rules. For the public, forget about it.
So when the announcement was made that the WBC had stripped Cotto, a percentage of fans viewed that as word that the fight was off.
It is very much on and still carries the promise of being an outstanding fight. But this is a problem the promoters should have cleared up long ago, so the announcement didn?t come down during fight-week activities.
That it happened at around the same time Alvarez and Cotto were making their arrivals at the Mandalay Bay and speaking to the media ? while a DJ screamed at the top of his lungs for the 150 or so fans who had gathered to make some noise ? may not have been coincidental.
Had Cotto promoter Roc Nation and Alvarez promoter Golden Boy thought ahead, they would have prevented this from coming to a head when it did.
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Canelo Alvarez says he is a super welterweight and not yet a middleweight. (Getty) Asked by Yahoo Sports at the arrival for his reaction, De La Hoya reacted with disgust.
?It?s a disgrace,? he said. ?It?s a disgrace to this promotion and it?s a disgrace to the sport that he didn?t follow the rules,? De La Hoya said.
De La Hoya, of course, did the same thing during his career. And rightly so. Fighters are risking their lives in the ring and the amount they?re asked to pay to fight for a belt that can be stripped from them for little or no reason is out of line.
The WBC followed its rules, which are available on its website for all to see, but those rules are designed to benefit it, not the boxers who are taking the risk. The same is true of the IBF, the WBA and the WBO.
Told that De La Hoya called his decision a disgrace, Cotto didn?t seem too concerned.
?Ask Oscar to pay $1.1 million to the WBC, and see what he says,? Cotto said. ?I don’t need a belt to validate my career.?
He does not. Nor does Alvarez.
The one thing the belt does in cases involving stars like Cotto and Alvarez is that it can help lead to bigger fights down the line. In this case, that?s the winner versus Golovkin.
But that now looks like a lost cause. Cotto, who became not only the WBC middleweight champion but the linear champion when he stopped Sergio Martinez last year, wouldn?t agree to the title fight against Alvarez unless there was a 155-pound weight limit.
That of course is ridiculous, but it?s more politics. The middleweight limit is 160, and if you?re the middleweight champion, you should defend the belt against the best challengers at 160 or under.
?This whole catch-weight thing is a loophole that someone thought of and Miguel?s just taking advantage of it,? Cotto trainer Freddie Roach told Yahoo Sports. ?Manny [Pacquiao] actually did it to Miguel [when they fought in 2009] and that actually was my idea. Manny isn?t that big of a guy, and I felt for his sake, it would be best for him if we put a limit on what Cotto could weigh. Miguel still blames me for that.
?I don?t really like it, to be honest with you, but guys do it. And since Canelo wanted the fight, Miguel had the leverage and he used it.?
The unfortunate part for those who wanted to see the winner meet Golovkin is that Alvarez now suggests that he?s not going to fight at middleweight, making the prospects of a Golovkin fight more unlikely.
?Everyone knows I?m a super welterweight and I can still make [the limit of 154] and that?s where I fight,? Alvarez said. ?I took this fight because I wanted to fight Cotto, so I did it. But as long as I can make my weight, that?s where I fight. There?s no rush [to move up].?
Golovkin has said he?d get to 154 pounds to fight Floyd Mayweather, so he?d theoretically be able to do so to meet Alvarez. But as we saw when Daniel Geale struggled to make the 157-pound limit that Cotto demanded for their title fight in June, the effort to make weight often leaves a fighter horribly and possibly dangerously depleted.
Fans who would want to see Cotto-Golovkin or Alvarez-Golovkin want to see the fighters at their best. But the likelihood would be that Golovkin would find himself in a situation like the one Geale faced. He?d likely make the cut to get the fight, but it wouldn?t be easy nor would it be good.
All of this can?t be good for the pay-per-view sales of Saturday?s fight. If it does half of what De La Hoya predicted that would be great.
Of course, it would be wonderful for the boxers and for the sport for De La Hoya?s prediction of 1.5 million sales to be on the money, but that?s not realistic.
Far too often, boxing is more about squeezing every last cent that can be extracted than about the sport.
De La Hoya ripped Mayweather for that in an essay he penned last week for Playboy. The timing of that essay left a lot to be desired, and don?t be shocked if in retaliation Mayweather does something this week to grab the media?s attention and yank the spotlight from Cotto-Alvarez.
But the promoters allowing this sanctioning body issue to surface during the week, and initiating a feud with Mayweather days before the bout, wasn?t the wisest business move by a long shot.
