By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Abel Sanchez expects Canelo Alvarez to beat Miguel Cotto.
If that happens, Gennady Golovkin’s trainer is sure Mexico’s Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) would defend the WBC middleweight title against Golovkin, assuming Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) defeats David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) in their Oct. 17 middleweight championship unification fight at Madison Square Garden. If Cotto wins their highly anticipated, HBO Pay-Per-View showdown Nov. 21 in Las Vegas, Sanchez envisions Cotto fighting Golovkin only if he beats Alvarez easily.
“Cotto is winding down his career,” Sanchez said. “He might not want to [fight Golovkin]. But if he beats Canelo, it depends on how Cotto beats Canelo. If Cotto beats Canelo decisively, then maybe Cotto would do it. Because maybe Cotto will get this idea that he’s more than what he is.”
The WBC has mandated that the Cotto-Alvarez winner must fight the winner between Kazakhstan’s Golovkin and Montreal’s Lemieux. Since winning the WBC middleweight championship from Argentina’s Sergio Martinez 14 months ago at The Garden, the 34-year-old Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) has shown little interest in facing the 33-year-old Golovkin, the interim WBC middleweight title-holder.
The Puerto Rican icon instead has made voluntary defenses of that 160-pound crown at catch weights against Australia’s Daniel Geale (31-4, 16 KOs), whom Cotto stopped in the fourth round June 6 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and Alvarez.
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.