By Dan Ambrose: One question on the minds of a number of boxing fans is whether the 32-year-old Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) will be able to make it out of 2013 still in the sport. Cotto has lost his last two fights, and Golden Boy Promotions wants to line him up with one of their young star fighters WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on May 4th.
In other words, Cotto is being seen as an opponent for Alvarez to add a name to his resume. A prime Cotto would have been a problem for Alvarez, but even then I’m not so certain Cotto would win because he’s really just a pumped up light welterweight that has eaten his way to 154. He’s not big for the weight class and he’d likely be way out of his element against a fighter like Alvarez.
You’ve got to figure that if Cotto takes that fight he’s going to lose it, which would give Cotto three consecutive defeats. That’s not good. His problem is that he wants to face just the top guys in the sport. That’s all well and good when you’re beating those top guys, but it’s different when they’re beating you over and over. I think Cotto will be in really bad shape if he gets beaten in his next fight.
You don’t like to see that happening with anyone, least of all for a big money fighter in Cotto’s class. Golden Boy Promotions aren’t doing Cotto any favors by trying to get him to fight Alvarez, because the chances of him winning that fight are low.
I think Cotto may indeed take the fight with Alvarez, and that’s going to give him three straight losses. Cotto being Cotto, he probably doesn’t want to take on a soft touch in his second fight in 2013, so you can expect him to fight another top level fighter. You have to figure that a fourth straight loss will be enough of a blow to Cotto’s career for him to retire permanently.
I think Cotto can still be successful, but he has to be matched like he was when Bob Arum was his promoter.
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