Canelo: I hope Cotto beats Trout

By Boxing News - 11/30/2012 - Comments

Image: Canelo: I hope Cotto beats Trout(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez took a huge risk by choosing not to fight this December to instead wait around for Golden Boy Promotions to lasso one of the three big names – Floyd Mayweather Jr, Miguel Cotto or Sergio Martinez – that he directed them to for his next fight date on May 4th. Alvarez lost four months of his career with that brilliant move.

By choosing not to fight in December, Canelo flushed down the toilet a big payday that he could have gotten against pretty much anyone that Golden Boy would dug up for him. They could have selected another light welterweight or another welterweight for Alvarez to fight and he’d have made big cash.

Cotto is the only one of the three fighters that Canelo told Golden Boy he wanted that could possibly fight him in May, but that all depends on whether Cotto beats Trout this Saturday night or not. It also depends on whether Cotto wants the fight, and he’s sounding like he’s tempted but still not convinced that he should take the fight. Obviously, Cotto wants a rematch against Mayweather Jr, and if that fight is made available to him he’s not going to bother wasting his time on the still unproven 22-year-old Alvarez next May.

Alvarez said to ESPN “I’d love to fight Cotto. I am here to see the fight and I have a lot of hope that Cotto will win. I want the honor of fighting him.”

Alvarez obviously wants that big pay per view payday that comes with fighting Cotto, because that would easily give Alvarez the biggest payday of his career. Alvarez may never get a fight against Mayweather Jr. and a fight against Sergio Martinez likely won’t bring in the kind of money that a Cotto fight will do. If Alvarez doesn’t Cotto fight he could end up waiting a long, long time before he gets his first big payday.

Mayweather likely will never fight him, and it’s doubtful that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will either because of the Top Rank vs. Golden Boy rivalry. There’s really not much there for Alvarez unless he’s up for fighting someone like Gennady Golovkin, the WBA middleweight champion, and I wouldn’t like Alvarez’s chances against Golovkin at all.

That would be a brutal fight for the young, flat-footed, easy to hit Alvarez. He’d be going against Golovkin with next to no experience against guys his own size and with no defense. Golovkin could create a freeway for every place he hits Alvarez in the head.

It wouldn’t be a pretty fight for Alvarez, and I can’t see Golden Boy ever allowing Alvarez to face Golovkin. Golovkin’s not small enough for Alvarez, who has been fighting light welterweights like Jose Miguel Cotto and Josesito Lopez, and welterweights like Alfoso Gomez, Kermit Cintron and Matthew Hatton.



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