By Keith Idec
Abel Sanchez isn’t overlooking Martin Murray, the man the middleweight monster Sanchez trains will encounter Saturday in Monte Carlo.
The veteran trainer envisions Gennady Golovkin demolishing Murray, though, which would leave the unbeaten knockout artist from Kazakhstan seeking a high-profile opponent for later this year. Sanchez hopes Miguel Cotto shows much more interest than he has thus far in facing Golovkin in a fight that’d determine middleweight supremacy.
Cotto’s unforeseen domination of Sergio Martinez last June 7 at Madison Square Garden earned the Puerto Rican icon the lineal middleweight title, but he has avoided what would be a highly anticipated middleweight championship unification fight against Golovkin. With Canelo Alvarez committed to fighting James Kirkland and Floyd Mayweather Jr. immersed in never-ending negotiations for a long-awaited showdown with Manny Pacquiao, Cotto-Golovkin is no longer relegated to the back burner.
The 34-year Cotto cannot keep the WBC middleweight title he won from Martinez and continue avoiding Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs). Golovkin won the WBC’s interim middleweight championship when he overwhelmed Mexico’s Marco Antonio Rubio (59-7-1, 51 KOs) on his way to a second-round knockout Oct. 18 in Carson, Calif.
“I think that Cotto’s psyche and his fan base and his backers are going to in a way force him into a situation where he has to make a decision [on fighting Golovkin],” Sanchez said. “If he makes the wrong decision, he’s going to lose a lot of credibility. He has built up a lot of credibility since he lost to Floyd and Margarito. He’s done a lot of good things. He’s won the middleweight title.
“But if he’s going to be at middleweight, then he needs to fight and let everybody know that he’s the middleweight champion. If he relinquishes it, I think it will be bad for his legacy, for how people are going to think of him 10, 15 years from now. If you think back to Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, Benitez, all those guys – Duran was at 135 and came up to 160 and gave Marvin Hagler a heck of a fight. So I think Cotto would be compared that way. If he doesn’t fight Golovkin, if he gives [the WBC title] up, it’ll be bad for him.”
Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) wouldn’t make as much money for fighting Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) as he would’ve earned for a Mayweather rematch or for meeting Mexico’s Alvarez, but it undoubtedly would do big business at Madison Square Garden. Cotto’s victory over Martinez, his ninth appearance at the Garden since June 2005, drew a capacity crowd of 21,090. Seven weeks later, Golovkin’s third-round technical knockout of Australia’s Daniel Geale (31-3, 16 KOs) drew a considerable crowd of 8,572 to the Garden.
“If Cotto decides to fight Gennady, I think that’s a fight that’d be huge at the Garden,” Sanchez said. “It’s a big payday for everybody and probably Cotto’s biggest fight in a long time and biggest challenge. He’s a Hall of Fame fighter and most guys like that need a challenge. I think Gennady Golovkin will give him that.”
The 32-year-old Golovkin is a 35-1 favorite over England’s Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) approaching their scheduled 12-round fight for Golovkin’s WBA and interim WBC middleweight championships Saturday. HBO will televise their fight live from Monte Carlo at 5:45 p.m. ET.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
