After Miguel Cotto fights and, trainer Freddie Roach expects, beats Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on November 21, his next opponent should be none other than Gennady Golovkin, the undefeated middleweight knockout specialist who has kayoed 30 of the 33 opponents he’s faced — including the last 20 in a row.
In fact, no one has lasted the distance with Golovkin since June 2008 — perhaps the reason why Roach, even though he trains both Cotto and Manny Pacquiao, says that after the retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Golovkin is now the world’s top boxer.
“He’s the best fighter out there right now. He knocks everyone out,” Roach told the FightHype boxing site on Tuesday. “He’s not fighting any big names like that, but there are no big names in the division right now. But whoever they put in front of him, he’s knocking them out. He’s looking pretty good to me. I like watching him.”
Roach’s comments come just three months after he claimed that his top disciple, Pacquiao, did not even know who Golovkin was, and that the 33-year-old Kazakhstan native, who now fights out of Los Angeles, did not have a name bankable enough to command a major pay-per-view fight.
This week, however, Roach has changed his tune considerably — so much, in fact, that he now says he wants Cotto to fight the dangerous “Triple G” in what could be the final fight for both the 55-year-old Roach and the 34-year-old Puerto Rican multi-division champion.
“I like the fight. I would like for (Cotto) to fight Triple G next,” Roach told the Boxing Scene site on Wednesday.
Roach said that, despite Golovkin’s fearsome record of flattening anyone who dares step into the ring with him, there are flaws in his technique — flaws that an experienced veteran champ such as Cotto will be able to pinpoint and use against the middleweight title-holder.
“I don’t think he’s invincible. I know it’s a hard fight, I know he’s a good puncher and I know all that. But I think it’s a very good fight for the fans and for everyone in the world. So I would like to see it,” Roach said.
Of course, Miguel Cotto needs to get past Alvarez in November before he would be in line for a fight with Gennady Golovkin, who is expected to win his next fight against 26-year-old Canadian David Lemieux October 17 at Madison Square Garden in New York. That fight will be broadcast by HBO Pay-Per-View , the first time Golovkin has headlined a pay-per-view event.
[Images: Ed Mulholland / Al Bello / Getty Images]