By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – David Lemieux doesn’t consider Miguel Cotto a real middleweight champion.
Montreal’s Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), who won the IBF middleweight title in his last fight, is among those bothered by Cotto’s insistence on defending the WBC middleweight championship at catch weights since he won it from Sergio Martinez 14 months ago at Madison Square Garden.
“Cotto shouldn’t be fighting at middleweight,” Lemieux said before a news conference Tuesday to officially announce his Oct. 17 fight against Gennady Golovkin at Madison Square Garden. “If you’re a middleweight, make 160. You’re a middleweight. Don’t fight at catch weights. It’s middleweight.
“You want to be 155, 154, you’re scared, but you want to have the status of a middleweight. You don’t want to make middleweight, you’re not a real middleweight. If you’re scared to fight at 160 and you want to have the status of a middleweight, but you don’t want make 160, then you shouldn’t be a middleweight.”
The 34-year-old Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) will defend the WBC middleweight title against Mexican star Canelo Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) on Nov. 21 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The contracted catch weight for that fight is 155 pounds, two less than Australia’s Daniel Geale (31-4, 16 KOs) was allowed to weigh for his June 6 fight against Puerto Rico’s Cotto, who knocked out Geale in the fourth round at Barclays Center.
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.