The end to the 2015 calendar year for the sport of boxing is officially heating up.
The highly-anticipated clash between Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Puerto Rican slugger Miguel Cotto has been formally set for November 21 at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, HBO announced on Thursday.
The showdown is officially set.
#CottoCanelo Saturday, November 21 live on @HBO Pay-Per-View pic.twitter.com/XH17W29Pwc
— HBOboxing (@HBOboxing) August 13, 2015
ESPN boxing insider Dan Rafael reports that the fight will be a championship bout, with Cotto set to defend his middleweight title in a pay-per-view showdown.
Additionally, Cotto and Alvarez will reportedly meet at a catchweight of 155 pounds, a weight both boxers have experience fighting at, rather than at the usual middleweight limit of 160 pounds.
The 25-year-old Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 knockouts) is coming off a third round knockout victory over James Kirkland last May. Meanwhile, the 34-year-old Cotto (40-4-0, 33 knockouts) stopped Daniel Geale via fourth round TKO in his last fight in June.
Besides the always juicy Mexico vs. Puerto Rico rivalry that the sport has given us in the past, the fight should be an entertaining one. Canelo’s power, reach advantage, and youth will provide the perfect foil for Cotto’s precision, footwork, and ability to work inside.
Also, with Kazakh destroyer of worlds Gennady Golovkin scheduled to fight David Lemieux in October, hopefully the winner of this bout can reasonably expect to secure a date in the ring with GGG come 2016.
As for November, this Cotto-Canelo fight looks poised to be an action-packed bonanza between two of boxing’s biggest stars that will give us much, much more than our money’s worth.
H/T Bleacher Report
Image via Golden Boy Promotions on Twitter
