The long-awaited showdown between Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Miguel Cotto will likely happen in September if the latter successfully defends his World Boxing Council middleweight title against Daniel Geale.
Cotto, who is set to make the first defense of his title against Geale on June 6 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, confirmed that there is already a verbal agreement for the fight against Alvarez.
Alvarez has been showing interest in facing Cotto for the title. But for the fight to happen, Cotto also needs to win against Geale, who previously said that he is determined to spoil the proposed Alvarez-Cotto bout.
"We believe after this fight, we have a verbal agreement with HBO, and we have a verbal agreement with Golden Boy, but we'll see what happens after this," Cotto said of facing Alvarez.
Cotto is also being linked to a title unification bout against unbeaten reigning International Boxing Organization and World Boxing Association middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
Golovkin, who holds a perfect 33-0 record with 30 knockout victories, is the mandatory challenger to the WBC middleweight title, but the 33-year-old Kazakh is ready to pave way for the Cotto-Alvarez fight as long as the winner will agree to face him for the title.
Cotto has yet to express desire to face Golovkin, who also faced Geale last year in a fight where the unbeaten world champion scored a third-round knockout. When asked if he is pressured to score a knockout against Geale like Golovkin did last year, Cotto said that there is no pressure to do so.
"I don't have any pressure on me," Cotto said via Boxing Insider. "I'm always going to do whatever is going to be the best for my family, the best for me, and I don't think and I don't take care of what people want, what people say about my career, the only person who dictates what happens in my career is myself."
Cotto has not fought since scoring a 10th-round knockout victory against then-champion Sergio Gabriel Martinez in June last year. But when asked if there is any concern about his conditioning, Cotto said that he is not worried about the long layoff because he has been working hard in training camp to prepare against Geale.
"It's not difficult to get back in after this long stretch," Cotto added. "I've been focused on my work. I have gained more knowledge during my time off in order to get myself ready to fight again."
