By Norm Frauenheim
Amid the clutter of 17 weight classes and more acronyms than letters in the alphabet, there’s something else to hang in that chaotic closest full of belts not worth a decent sanctioning fee at the corner pawnshop.
Catch-weights are just another part of the mess. Like a lot of junk, the catch-weight clause is many things. Sometimes a loophole and always an annoyance, it it’s also part gamesmanship. It’s an opportunity for the guy with A-side power to dictate.
In the end, however, it just represents further confusion in a business screaming for a little clarity, if not order.
It further buries all titles beneath insignificance so deep that few care anymore. Another shovel full of it is about to be dumped on the middleweight title, or whatever piece of it is at stake in the Miguel Cotto-Daniel Geale fight at Brooklyn’s Barclays Centre on June 6 in a HBO-televised bout.
They have agreed not to exceed 157 pounds for a 160-pound title. Does that make any sense? No, says Geale.
“”If it’s not a title fight, then a catch-weight is not a problem,’’ the Australian said Thursday during a conference call for Jay Z’s Roc Nation-promoted bout. “But if you’re fighting for a middleweight title, the weight limit is 160. I find it funny. It should be at 160, but I’m not going to complain.’’
He can’t complain. He agreed to the catch-weight, after all, simply because it was the only way he could secure a chance to challenge Cotto on HBO. Cotto, the A-side on a New York weekend that celebrates his Puerto Rican heritage, has all the leverage in a bout seen as a steppingstone to big money with Mexico’s Canelo Alvarez later this year.
That Cotto would demand it at all, however, might be a sign of some concern about Geale, who is taller and has about a five-inch advantage in reach. Austin Trout had about a four-inch edge in reach in his 2012 upset of Cotto. What’s more, Geale, knocked out in July within three rounds by Gennady Golovkin, is a natural middleweight. Cotto, Puerto Rico’s first champion at four weights, is not. He said so Thursday.
“Everybody knows I’m not a 160-pound fighter,’’ said Cotto, who will be fighting in the division for only the second time since he beat a hobbled Sergio Martinez a year ago.
Against Martinez, Cotto was able to leverage his proven drawing power into negotiating a 159-pound catch-weight. At opening bell, Cotto was at 155. Against an even lesser known Geale, Cotto was able to demand and get a couple of more pounds of flesh. It’s gamesmanship. It’s the way business is done these days, says Coto trainer Freddie Roach. To wit: Force the other guy to sweat. But that’s more of gotcha clause than catch-weight.
“They’re trying to weaken me by making me go down a few more pounds,’’ said Geale, who was born on the island of Tasmania, south of the Aussie continent.
They are, yet in the process they further weaken a title in a division with a fabled history. Mavin Hagler fought for the middleweight championship. Cotto and Geale are fighting for the 157-pound title, what ever that is.
Geale promoter Gary Shaw has an interesting idea. Any title fight at a catch-weight should come with an asterisk. But where would you put it? Between the bauble and the bangle on the belt’s brass plate? Between the interim and the emeritus in the record book? These days, it’d just be more meaningless clutter.
