Gennady "GGG" Golovkin had hoped a win over Daniel Geale in July would vault him into a position where he couldn't be avoided by the top-notch fighters in the middleweight division, but his star clearly hasn't risen enough for Miguel Cotto to notice.
Cotto took Sergio Martinez's WBC middleweight belt in June, and his trainer Freddie Roach said the priority for Cotto is Canelo Alvarez, not Golovkin.
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"Right now with Cotto, we've got to fight Canelo Alvarez. He's making a lot of noise out there and selling a lot of tickets," Roach said. "You've got Peter Quillin out there [for Golovkin], and Daniel Jacobs. There's some top 10 guys out there, but he hasn't fought any of them yet. In his last fight, he fought a good boxer, but he obviously couldn't punch that hard and was scared to death in round one."
While Golovkin has emerged as the consensus top middleweight, questions remain about his level of opposition. Geale had been his most decorated opponent to date, as a former two-time champion, but his performance in a Round 3 TKO loss didn't convince many that he ever stood a chance.
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"He's [Golovkin] a good fighter, a good puncher, and guys that are hittable, I like. I think the avoid part is on his people's behalf. He chose those opponents. He chose to fight opponents at the right time. He's been well protected. But now he's at a level where he can fight anybody in the world," Roach said.
Cotto is slated to fight on December 13, while Golovkin will be returning to the ring in October or November. Cotto's not going to get Alvarez on the 13th, but it's clear Golovkin won't be in the plans.
"We're going on December 13th. We've got a couple of opponents we're looking at but nothing has been decided," Roach said to IFL TV.
"As soon as Gabby gets down to 2 to 3 guys, he'll give me a call. I know Triple-G has been calling him [Cotto] out, but he knows Triple-G brings nothing to the table because he has no pay-per-view audience. I think he's marketed very bad by his promoters [K2 Promotions]. Well, no one knows him in America, and he's only fought once on HBO, and I never seen him fight before the other night."
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