With Miguel Cotto's emphatic fourth-round knockout of Daniel Geale this past weekend at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, the immediate focus turned to a fall showdown versus Saul "Canelo" Alvarez - in what would be one of the most anticipated fights of 2015.
But Cotto, who has the WBC middleweight title in his possession, still has an obligation to face Gennady "GGG" Golovkin, who is currently the WBC interim-champion based on his victory over Marco Antonio Rubio last October.
Tom Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions told Boxingscene.com on Wednesday morning:
"Certainly Cotto can fight Canelo if he wants to but not for the WBC title unless they have an agreement from us. The whole point of the interim championship is when the regular champion is healthy he's obligated to fight him and the voluntatry defense that we had this time - that was supposed to be the Canelo fight. That was the resolution at the WBC convention. They were supposed to fight May 2nd and then we wouldn't have this issue with trying to work out something for the Cotto-Canelo fight.
"So that's the situation there. They chose to fight Geale and now the winner of the Cotto-Geale fight is obligated to fight against Gennady or vacate the title."
So is Team Golovkin amenable to a step-aside fee to allow that fight to be contested for the WBC title?
"I don't think we would agree to anything unless the winner agreed to fight Gennady," answered Loeffler. "So it's a matter of trying to get the best fights and we're certainly not trying to box Cotto out. Cotto has the WBC Middleweight Title, he's obligated to fight Gennady. So then if they want to try and work soemthing out and try to make that fight, that would be the obligation on their side."
"But, we don't have any agreement in place. I guess they're in talks to do the Cotto-Canelo fight but we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks."
Article Courtesy of Boxingscene