Miguel Cotto, the WBC middleweight champion, is going to fight at Madison Square Garden in June. He is not going to fight the man most boxing fans want to see him face, WBA and IBO middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin.
Cotto is more likely to take on IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius "K-9" Bundrage, a 41-year-old brawler, according to reports. Golovkin's people said they reached out to Cotto's camp for the June fight but received no response. They moved on to Willie Monroe Jr., whom Golovkin will face on May 16.
"It's hard to say how confident we are of getting Cotto," Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler said. "I don't have a good feeling with Cotto because we reached out to him for this fight in June and we really got no response. They are going to fight on June 6 and what they are going to do afterwards I don't know. The WBC has mandated that the winner of that fight on June 6 and the winner of this fight have to fight each other. "
Golovkin has gained a reputation as the premier knockout artist in the sport today. He has stopped 19 consecutive opponents, and even in his toughest fight to date, a February win over Martin Murray, his only real struggle was finishing the durable Murray off. His legitimacy is questioned in some circles though because he has a lack of elite competition on his resume.
To rectify that, Golovkin has sought out Cotto to cement himself as one of the best in boxing pound-for-pound. Beating Cotto would also give him three middleweight belts, and make him the man to go through for big names at 160 pounds. Loeffler has said that if Cotto were to agree to fight Golovkin, the contract terms would be very favorable.
"Like I said before we can't force them to get in the ring," Loeffler said. "Whatever deal we work out with Cotto would be in Cotto's favor. If him and Cotto fought at Madison Square Garden it would be a huge fight."
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