Cotto Wants Mayweather To “Stop Making Excuses”

By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, undefeated WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (31-0, 25 KOs) has called out WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (39-0, 25 KOs), saying to “stop making excuses” for not fighting him. As of now, Mayweather, 30, has a scheduled rematch with Oscar De La Hoya to take place on September 20th in Las Vegas. Depending on the outcome of the fight, it’s difficult to say when/if Mayweather will be interested in a bout with the unbeaten 27 year-old Cotto.

At this stage, Mayweather hardly would seem to need Cotto, for he can choose immediately after a bout with De La Hoya whether to fight him a third time or take on someone like Rikcy Hatton once again. Either of those two possibilities would likely bring in more money than a bout with the dangerous Cotto. For his part, Cotto is perhaps seeing how few opportunities for big money bouts in the welterweight division. The competition has thinned out as of recently with the loss of WBO welterweight champion Paul Williams to Carlos Quintana, the latter fighter being someone that Cotto already beat by a 5th round stoppage in December 2006.

The interest in a second fight between the two would probably be low by the public considering the one-sided nature of their first bout. Other than Quintana, there’s Kermit Cintron, the IBF welterweight champion, Antonio Margarito, Andre Berto and Joshua Clottey.

Either Cintron or Margarito will soon be eliminated as a future opponent of interest, because the two are meeting in a bout scheduled for April 12th. Margarito has shown interest in fighting Cotto, although the bout would be nowhere near approaching the big money that would be generated with a bout with Mayweather, De La Hoya or Hatton. Andre Berto looks to be headed in the direction of Mayweather, as he’s the number #1 challenger for his WBA belt.

Cotto is going to be keeping himself busy for awhile fighting lesser fighters. In April, he has a bout scheduled with former television fighter Alfonso Gomez from The Contender reality TV series. Gomez, though a good fighter, doesn’t expect to have much of a chance against Cotto. The fight, however, should be mildly interesting, but nothing approaching a mega-fight due to Gomez’s low ranked (#9) in the WBC welterweight division. Following that bout, Cotto has another easy fight scheduled, this one against former welterweight champion Ricardo Mayorga on July 19th.

However, at this pace, it would take Cotto another 15 bouts to equal what he’d get in one fight against either Mayweather, Hatton or De La Hoya. It’s safe to assume that Cotto would like to get that big pay the easy way by facing one of those three, especially Mayweather. The likelihood of that happening, however, seems remote in the near term, and perhaps never. Mayweather doesn’t need Cotto, and can go one picking and choosing whomever he pleases for the rest of his career without having to face Cotto.

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