Miguel Cotto destroyed Daniel Geale to defend his WBC middleweight championship on Saturday at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, further drumming up interest in a potential showdown with Canelo Alvarez.
Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs), who last year became the only Puerto Rican fighter to capture world titles in four weight classes, dropped Geale twice in the fourth round before the Australian told referee Tony Chiarantano he’d had enough at the 1:28 mark.
The 34-year-old Cotto outboxed Geale in the early rounds, committing to the body attack while countering adroitly with sharp hooks upstairs. Through the second and third rounds, he used distance and series of well-schooled combinations to keep the former unified 160lb titleholder at bay.
“I knew after the first round I needed to get more aggressive,” said Cotto, who landed 68 of 183 punches (37%), compared to 33 of 127 for Geale (26%).
Early in the fourth, Cotto floored Geale with a right to the body followed quickly by a left hook the Australian never saw coming and left him supine on the canvas.
“I threw the right and he put his right hand down at the same time and boom,” said Cotto, who landed 17 of 34 power shots in the fateful fourth to close the show.
The second knockdown was less a detonation than an accumulation of head and body shots as Cotto rushed in guns blazing to close the show, whipping the crowd of 12,157 into a white-hot frenzy.
Geale (31-4, 16 KOs) clearly looked weight-drained, having struggled to make the contracted weight of 157lb.
After the formalities were announced, it didn’t take long for talk to turn to the prospective showdown with Alvarez, arguably the biggest fight that can be made today.
Cotto’s response, for one, was classically understated.
“I’ve had 44 fights in my whole career, Canelo is just another one,” he said. “If people want the fight, let’s do it.”
Also behind the idea is Freddie Roach, the trainer under whom Cotto has enjoyed a career resurgence.
“I like the fight, I think it’s a good fight,” Roach said. “Canelo is a young guy coming up and Miguel is a guy that’s getting better and better at what he does.”
