Cotto vs Geale Sat night (yahoo)

[rudee]

When Daniel Geale was last seen in these parts, he offered the Australian equivalent of "no mas, mate" after picking himself up from a third-round knockdown by WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. By that measure, it's easy to conclude Geale might be in for another beating against WBC middleweight champ Miguel Cotto Saturday night at Barclays Center.

But there's another measure that suggests Cotto isn't underestimating Geale at all. It's the 157-pound catchweight -- three pounds below the middleweight limit -- that Cotto forced Geale to accept if he wanted the fight. It infers that Cotto, who spent most of his career fighting at super lightweight and welterweight before beating middleweight champion Sergio Martinez a year ago, understands Geale is the naturally bigger man, a true middleweight who poses a serious danger with his size.


"Yes, it does," Geale agreed Tuesday after the final news conference at a midtown restaurant. "They want me to come down because I'm a bit taller with a longer reach. I think the way they see it, it's going to help him toward the later parts of the fight.

"Those three pounds definitely do make a difference. They put that extra little bit of pressure on your body. But I will come back up. That's why I wanted the fight whether it was at a catchweight or not. I know my body recovers relatively quickly. Given that full day in between, I should be back to 100 percent."

The weigh-in is Friday at 1 p.m., meaning Geale should have about 34 hours to rehydrate and get comfortable before stepping in the ring with Cotto. By then, Geale, who said he weighed about 162 Tuesday, might even be pushing 170 pounds.

[Fibroso]

Remember Arum's 145 catchweight deal for the Pac vs Cotto fight, well at least Cotto is letting Geale hydrate the day before the fight. Arum made Cotto go in the ring weighting 145 pounds the day of the fight or pay money for every extra pound. That was defending his own title. Varcarcel became a cooperator on this forcing Cotto to accept the deal. The rest is history.

[Fibroso]

Catchweight concern playing a role in Cotto-Geale

They are the three most talked about pounds in boxing these days -- the three extra ones that former middleweight titleholder Daniel Geale must shed in order to get down to the 157-pound contract weight that champion Miguel Cotto insisted upon when they made their deal in April.From the outset there was concern about whether Geale, who has never had an easy time making the 160-pound division limit, would be able to get all the way down to 157. Geale was the first one to say it would be a chore.
Cotto-GealeWhere: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY
When: Saturday
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET/PT, HBO
Those concerns flared up again when an already lean Geale weighed 167.5 pounds at the seven-day weight check ahead of their meeting on Saturday night (HBO, 10:30 ET/PT) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, where Cotto will make the first defense of the crown he won 364 days earlier by knocking out Sergio Martinez in the 10th round across the river at Madison Square Garden.
The weight became a major talking point at the final news conference on Tuesday with Geale's team making an issue out of it and Cotto, who weighed 163.6 pounds at the weight check, making no apologies for exercising the leverage that he had in the negotiations.
"I have a personal problem with catchweights. We accepted the catchweight of 157 and I'm not here to complain about the catchweight," said Gary Shaw, Geale's promoter, before doing just that. "We're going to make the weight. It's going to be tough. I believe that if a fighter wants to fight at any weight that he wants to fight at, he has that opportunity. But he shouldn't stop the opponent from fighting at the sanctioned weight, which in this case is 160."
A few days earlier, Geale made his view of catchweights known on a teleconference with reporters.
"If you're fighting for a title, like a middleweight world title, 160-pound title, the weight limit is 160 pounds," he said. "So, you know, I just find it funny. I signed and I'm going to make the weight, but in saying that it should be at 160 and I'm not going to whine about it, not going to complain. But that's the way it is, and hopefully in the future there aren't too many more catchweights. But we take it on the chin, and I'll be 100 percent ready for this one."
Said Shaw: "I just don't think there should be catchweights unless the sanction bodies want to change the rules that they fight under. So that's my own personal views. Daniel will make 157 on Friday, the day of the weigh-in."


When Cotto (39-4-0, 32 KOs), 34, stopped Martinez, he became the first Puerto Rican boxer to win world titles in four weight divisions, from 140 to 160 pounds. He is small for a middleweight and took that into account when negotiating the deal with Geale (31-3, 16 KOs), 34, of Australia, hearkening back to the harsh lesson he said he learned when he accepted a 145-pound catchweight to defend his welterweight world title against Manny Pacquiao in 2009. Cotto got knocked out in the 12th round, a loss he partly attributed to the difficulty he had making 145 pounds when the division maximum is 147.
It is a negotiation he has never forgotten.
"I think that people are making a big issue where there does not need to be a big issue with catchweights. Freddie, back in 2009, made me go down from 147 to 145,” Cotto said of trainer Freddie Roach, who trained Pacquiao against him. “Did anyone hear anything about Miguel Cotto disagreeing with the catchweights? No, I was a gentleman the whole way. Catchweights were our main point to make this fight happen. Daniel and his team agreed to going down to 157, and I hope he can make weight on Friday. I hope to see everyone there on Saturday night."
Shaw told ESPN.com that even though the contract stipulates that the maximum weight for the bout is 157 pounds, he said there is no penalty in the agreement in the event that either man is over the weight. Geale could weigh 160 pounds, and the WBC, whose world title is at stake, would still sanction the bout because he would not be over the division limit.
Cotto, of course, could walk away from the fight. But would the future Hall of Famer risk such a massive backlash for doing so from boxing fans, media, HBO and Barclays Center executives and his own promoter, Jay Z's Roc Nation Sports, which is promoting its first Cotto fight after signing him earlier this year?
Roach tried to downplay the catchweight controversy.
"Gary has been making a big deal about catchweights, but they have been around for a long time, and he knows how to read a contract and he has had that contract for a long time now, so I don't think that's an issue," Roach said. "I remember Miguel had to come down when he fought Manny Pacquiao and it worked for us in that -- sorry, Miguel. This guy's a little bit bigger than us, so put catchweight in there and make him work a little harder."
Geale, who handily outpointed countryman Jarrod Fletcher in December to rebound from a crushing third-round knockout while challenging middleweight titleholder Gennady Golovkin last July, said he understood that Cotto had the leverage in the negotiations and that if he wanted another shot at a world title, he was going to have to play ball on the subject of weight.
"I think that dropping me down a few pounds may weaken me a little bit, but I'm going to make sure that's not the case," Geale said. "And once I step into that ring, you know, it's going to be 100 percent, ready to go."
Geale said he believes that Cotto is looking past him to a fall mega pay-per-view fight with Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.


"Yes, I definitely believe that they're looking past me. Miguel and his camp are definitely looking past me," said Geale, who won a middleweight world title in 2011 and made four successful defenses, including unifying two belts. "I think they've chosen me as probably not one of the super strong middleweights at the moment and especially bringing me down a few pounds. They think they're going to weaken me even more. So they're definitely looking past me and looking for big-money fights, which is exciting for me."
Geale said that getting down in weight is hard even though he has been working with a dietitian.
"Making weight any time -- even at 160 -- isn't that easy, but if I do it right and I do it very smart, then it's not going to weaken me," he said. "If anything it just makes me a little bit more switched on and a little bit more determined."
As for Cotto, he said he would not have fought Geale if he did not get the weight he wanted in the agreement.
"If they want to fight with Miguel Cotto, they get to agree with the catchweight," he said bluntly, "If not, the fight doesn't happen."