Rios doesn’t want to see Cotto-Pacquiao II

By Boxing News - 01/26/2012 - Comments

Image: Rios doesn't want to see Cotto-Pacquiao IIBy Chris Williams: Like a lot of people that have been speaking their mind lately, former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios doesn’t have any interest in seeing WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao fight Miguel Cotto again after seeing how one-sided their previous fight was back in 2009.

Cotto, however, is thought to be Top Rank CEO Bob Arum’s #1 choice for Pacquiao’s next fight on June 9th in Las Vegas. The only thing separating the two fighters from getting it on again in another expensive pay per view bout is Cotto refusing to fight Pacquiao at 147lbs.

In an interview by Las Vegas writer Chris Robinson at examiner.com, Rios spoke his mind about the possible Pacquiao-Cotto II rematch, saying “It kind of sucks. Cotto’s done, I think Cotto’s done, He’s looking for another payday before he can get out.”

Rios fights for the same Top Rank stable as Cotto and has already been mentioned by Arum as a possible opponent for Pacquiao in 2013. But I do agree with what Rios is saying about Cotto being essentially done with his career.

Cotto seems to have been put in the shutdown mode ever since his loss to Pacquiao in 2009. Arum stopped matching Cotto against the younger dangerous junior middleweights and focused more on older or injured fighters. In his fights since the Pacquiao loss, Cotto has been matched against 38-year-Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman with an injured right leg, and Antonio Margarito coming off of three surgeries.

Even in the Margarito fight, Cotto looked to be fading when the fight was halted because of Margarito’s surgically repaired eye closing up on him. Cotto looked like he would have had major problems against a one-eyed Margarito had the fight been allowed to continue. Rios feels the same way about the fight as well, and notes that Margarito was coming on at the time the fight was halted.

Cotto will probably agree to fight Pacquiao at 147 anyway because there are few choices for him in terms of big fights other than rematches against Margarito and Pacquiao.

I think Cotto would be beaten by a lot of the top light middleweights in the division as well as in the welterweight division. He’s not the same fighter he was in 2008 when he fought Margarito, and he’d probably fall apart if Arum actually put him in with a younger junior middleweight that wasn’t physically impaired by a crippling injury or some sort.



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