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by Cliff Rold - The weight is over.
After much chatter about the 157 lb. catchweight for this Saturday’s Middleweight title bout, both men stepped on the scales and that was that. Geale hit his target. Cotto came in well below 157.
We’ve got a fight.
What kind of fight? We will know that soon enough. Cotto, making the first defense of the title he wrested from Sergio Martinez last June, has plenty on the line. A big money showdown with “Canelo” Alvarez seems a likely destination for the fall. He just has to avoid falling Saturday night to get there.
As in-between opponents go, he didn’t pick a patsy. Even with a catchweight, Geale is an accomplished Middleweight in this era. He unified two titles in the class and went on the road to win both of them. Had he faced Cotto coming off his win over Felix Sturm, he might be favored. Instead Geale is two fights removed from the lone knockout loss of his career to Gennady Golovkin and he definitely isn’t.
Can the Australian pull the upset?
Despite the deserved criticism of the catchweight in this fight, Cotto deserves credit for at least facing a man still universally seen as one of the top ten Middleweights in the sport. Middleweight isn’t the strongest or deepest class in boxing but there are good fighters there. Geale has been one for several years.
Will he be his good self in the ring on Saturday or will the extra loss of pounds prove prohibitive to his chances? Let’s assume he’s close to form until we see something that proves otherwise. If Geale isn’t throwing much and has dead legs, we’ll see that early on. It would be off form. [Click Here To Read More]
After much chatter about the 157 lb. catchweight for this Saturday’s Middleweight title bout, both men stepped on the scales and that was that. Geale hit his target. Cotto came in well below 157.
We’ve got a fight.
What kind of fight? We will know that soon enough. Cotto, making the first defense of the title he wrested from Sergio Martinez last June, has plenty on the line. A big money showdown with “Canelo” Alvarez seems a likely destination for the fall. He just has to avoid falling Saturday night to get there.
As in-between opponents go, he didn’t pick a patsy. Even with a catchweight, Geale is an accomplished Middleweight in this era. He unified two titles in the class and went on the road to win both of them. Had he faced Cotto coming off his win over Felix Sturm, he might be favored. Instead Geale is two fights removed from the lone knockout loss of his career to Gennady Golovkin and he definitely isn’t.
Can the Australian pull the upset?
Despite the deserved criticism of the catchweight in this fight, Cotto deserves credit for at least facing a man still universally seen as one of the top ten Middleweights in the sport. Middleweight isn’t the strongest or deepest class in boxing but there are good fighters there. Geale has been one for several years.
Will he be his good self in the ring on Saturday or will the extra loss of pounds prove prohibitive to his chances? Let’s assume he’s close to form until we see something that proves otherwise. If Geale isn’t throwing much and has dead legs, we’ll see that early on. It would be off form. [Click Here To Read More]
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