Arum to let Cotto fight Chavez Jr. if he beats Margarito – News

By Boxing News - 11/24/2011 - Comments

Image: Arum to let Cotto fight Chavez Jr. if he beats Margarito - NewsBy Eric Thomas: If WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KO’s) can get by Antonio Margarito in their grudge match on December 3rd, Bob Arum reportedly will be allowing Cotto to finally face WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 Ko’s) in a Top Rank in house fight. Arum had been saving Chavez Jr. up for a special occasion to put him in with Saul Alvarez, the WBC junior middleweight champion.

However, it looks like Arum doesn’t want to wait for that fight to happen. You can hardly blame Arum for being impatient for wanting to get Chavez Jr. in a big fight because putting together a mega bout against Alvarez may prove to be impossible due to the different weight classes and promotional companies of the two fighters. Also, Chavez Jr. is a vulnerable fighter and sooner or later he’s going to have to fight someone good and he’ll likely lose.

The same goes for Cotto. He’s done well in the past couple of years with Arum matching him carefully against the likes of 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga and the light hitting Yuri Foreman, but Cotto is going to have to eventually face a good fighter coming up the ranks like Vanes Martirosyan, Austin Trout, Nobuhiro Ishida or James Kirkland, and he’ll get destroyed by those guys. But by keeping the fighters in house, Arum can exclude danger from fighters outside of his promotional company.

There’s no word about whether Arum will allow Margarito a shot at Chavez Jr. if he happens to beat Cotto on December 3rd. My guess is no. I think only Cotto gets the shot at Chavez Jr, and not Margarito. He would likely bludgeon Chavez Jr. into submission in an ugly fight.

The Chavez-Cotto fight is a perfect one, because both of these guys aren’t likely to hold onto their titles for too much longer unless the can avoid their top challengers. At least by facing each other, they can get a good payday before they get wiped out by one of the challengers.

Cotto obviously will take the Chavez Jr. fight in a second. He’s been wanting that fight for ages but hasn’t been given the opportunity by Arum to fight the young Chavez Jr. until now. It would be sad if Margarito were to ruin Cotto’s big chance by ripping him to pieces again and taking away his big opportunity just when he’s so close to getting it.



Comments are closed.