The long-awaited Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez showdown should deliver everything dissatisfied fight fans didn?t get from Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Their r?sum?s and styles strongly suggest Cotto-Alvarez will be action-packed and dramatic ? the latest on a long list of memorable battles between Puerto Rican and Mexican boxers. Well aware of the Mayweather-Pacquiao backlash, Puerto Rico?s Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Mexico?s Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs), who?ll promote their Nov. 21 fight at a news conference today in New York, are eager to justify their eight-figure paydays by thoroughly entertaining consumers for their ticket ($150 to $2,000) and pay-per-view dollars ($64.95 in HD).
About the only thing bothersome about Cotto-Alvarez is that it?s being billed as a middleweight title fight.
The WBC has granted Cotto yet another exception to defend the Mexico City-based sanctioning organization?s middleweight championship at a catch weight below the usual limit of 160 pounds. Cotto, 34, demanded in the contracts that neither he nor Alvarez, 25, can weigh in at more than 155 pounds the day before they square off at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
This marks the third straight middleweight title fight for which Cotto has refused to allow his opponent to weigh in at the actual middleweight limit.
Australia?s Daniel Geale (31-4, 16 KOs), whom Cotto stopped in the fourth round June 6 at Barclays Center, couldn?t weigh in at more than 157 pounds. Argentina?s Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs), then the WBC middleweight champion, couldn?t exceed 159 pounds at the weigh-in for a fight Cotto surprisingly dominated 14 months ago at Madison Square Garden.
Cotto essentially has used his star power to hijack the WBC middleweight title, all while avoiding the undefeated, emerging star Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs), who?s commonly considered boxing?s true middleweight champion.
“Cotto shouldn?t be fighting at middleweight,” said IBF middleweight champ David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), who?ll fight Golovkin on Oct. 17 at Madison Square Garden. “If you?re a middleweight, make 160. ? Don?t fight at catch weights.”
What Cotto can?t seem to grasp is that masquerading as boxing?s lineal middleweight champion when even he admits he?s a junior middleweight only hurts his hard-earned brand.
Ultimately, the paying public isn?t any more interested in what should be a fantastic fight between Cotto and Alvarez because Cotto has hijacked the WBC middleweight title he doesn?t deserve to keep.
