Canelo could face Cotto on May 4th

By Boxing News - 12/21/2012 - Comments

cotto8By Allan Fox: With the news that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely be facing Robert Guerrero on May 4th, WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) will have to take another opponent for the same May 4th fight date. Apparently, his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are still considering putting him in with Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s).

Austin Trout is also being mentioned as a possibility for Canelo, but it seems like Cotto is really the guy that they want for this fight because Trout isn’t well known and he’s a tall fighter with a great jab, a southpaw stance and excellent mobility.

In other words, Trout is like a junior middleweight version of Sergio Martinez, whereas Alvarez is more like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Alvarez doesn’t move well, and he takes jabs to the head as we saw in his fight with Shane Mosley.

The right thing for Golden Boy to do would be to match Alvarez with Trout, because after all Trout did technically earn the shot to face Alvarez by beating Cotto, but Golden Boy will likely be looking to protect what Trout calls their “Golden Goose” in Alvarez, because he’s got a large following of Mexican fans, and Golden Boy sees him as a future pay per view star.

For Canelo to become a PPV star with his flat-footed fighting style, he’s going to have to be kept away from guys with good mobility and boxing skills like Erislandy Lara, Trout, Vanes Martirosyan and Demetrius Andrade.

Those guys all would have a good chance of beating Alvarez. The guys that Alvarez does well against are fighters like Josesito Lopez, who come straight at him trying to slug it out. That’s perfect for Canelo because he can’t handle lateral movement and is poor at cutting off the ring.

It’s going to be weird to see Cotto facing Alvarez on May 4th, and more than a few hardcore boxing fans are going to be upset about seeing them fighting, but Golden Boy is aiming this fight towards the casual boxing fans who won’t know about how badly Cotto was beaten by Trout, and they won’t know that it should be Trout that’s facing Alvarez. They won’t think that Alvarez is ducking Trout if he faces Cotto, because they won’t have seen the Cotto-Trout fight.



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