By Allan Fox: Former three time world champion Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) could be facing junior middleweight contender Carlos Molina (21-5-2, 6 KO’s) on October 5th, according to Steve Kim. There isn’t a venue yet, but Barclays Center in New York is a possibility.
Besides Molina’s name, Erislandy Lara, Vanes Martirosyan, Demetrius Andrade, Sergey Rabchenko and Zaurbek Baysangurov are also being mentioned as potential opponents for Cotto, according to Fightnews. However, I would find it hard to believe that Cotto would want to take on any of them because they’re either too tough or too obscure for Cotto to be facing one of them coming off of two straight losses.
Molina makes more sense because he’s not a big puncher, and the most that Cotto has to worry about is getting hit with a lot of body shots on the inside. Molina is a slippery fighter that likes to punch and grab, and smother his opponents.
It’ll be difficult for him to have that kind of success against Cotto because he’s a good inside fighter. However, Molina is still a difficult opponent for Cotto. That’s not going to be a cake walk in beating this guy, if he’s the one that is selected.
Cotto’s October 5th fight will be co-promoted by Top Rank, according to Fightnews. Cotto left Top Rank not too long ago, but he left on good terms. Cotto had the option of facing Manny Pacquiao last year, but instead chose to fight former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout after he couldn’t agree on the weigh for the Pacquiao fight.
In Cotto’s last two fights, he’s been beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Trout by 12 round decisions. The Mayweather fight was a close one, but Trout was able to beat Cotto convincingly.
Cotto has got to beat Molina, or whoever he’s matched up with next, for him to remain a factor in the 154 pound division. A defeat in October would be Cotto’s third straight loss and that would make it difficult for him to be seen as a serious player in the division.
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