Pacquiao’s wife Jinkee says Cotto is next

By Boxing News - 01/15/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao's wife Jinkee says Cotto is nextBy Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao’s wife Jinkee told philstar.com “He wants Cotto.” I don’t know how much weight Jinkee has when it comes to having inside information about Pacquiao’s next opponent, but that sure does make sense because Cotto fits all the criteria that Pacquiao’s promoter likes in an opponent: A. Cotto fights for Top Rank on a fight by fight basis. B. He’s a big PPV attraction. C. He’s no threat to beat Pacquiao; D. He has a big fan base.

This fight makes sense for other reasons as well, because Arum wants to keep Cotto with Top Rank after his contract with them ran out last month. The best way to ensure that Cotto sticks around is to immediately put him in with Pacquiao for a payday bout.

That kind of thing will go a long ways in making sure that Cotto stays loyal to Arum. Does it benefit Pacquiao to fight a guy that he already easily beat in a 12th round knockout in 2009? No, probably not, although Cotto definitely will bring in more money on PPV than Lamont Peterson and Timothy Bradley, two of the other fighters that Arum and Pacquiao were considering.

I never saw Peterson or Bradley as serious candidates, though, because both of them are still too unknown among the casual boxing fans and Arum wants to exhaust all the big payday opportunities before he goes down the list to the guys that won’t bring a lot of money. Pacquiao would be doing Arum a favor to fight Bradley and Peterson.

Earlier today, Ringtv reported that Cotto and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez were possibly in negotiations for a fight. The news wasn’t solid though and it could have been more of a rumor than reality. The Cotto-Pacquiao fight seems a more feasible option than Cotto vs. Alvarez.

It’s likely that Arum is sticking with one of his Top Rank stable fighters for the Pacquiao fight so that Pacquiao gets something out of this and he gets something out of it as well. Cotto is better than Bradley and Peterson for money, but less of a threat than Juan Manuel Marquez. The Mexican brings in just as much money as Cotto, but he actually has the ability to beat Pacquiao, so that’s probably why Marquez isn’t going to get the fight. He probably only got selected last time because was 38 and Arum likely thought he was deteriorated enough for Pacquiao to beat for once. They were obviously wrong. Marquez deserved to win the last fight, but that’s why he’s not going to get it this time.



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