Miguel Cotto vs. Delvin Rodriguez do-or-die fight to be announced tomorrow

By Boxing News - 07/22/2013 - Comments

cotto8By Dan Ambrose: Former three division world champion Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s) will be meeting with opponent Delvin Rodriguez (28-6-3, 16 KO’s) tomorrow, July 23rd in Orlando, Florida to announce their fight on October 5th.

This will be a 12 round bout and HBO will be televising it despite no title being on the line and Cotto having lost his last two fights. It’s one of those do or die fights for Cotto, because he can’t afford to lose to a guy like Rodriguez if he wants to remain in the hunt for the important fights against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

However, now that Cotto is back with Top Rank, it’s likely that he won’t be facing Golden Boy fighter Canelo, and there’s really no point at all in a Mayweather-Cotto fight Mayweather already beat Cotto last year.

Cotto is with trainer Freddie Roach now after having left Pedro Diaz, and there are expectations by some that Roach will be able to help Cotto get back on the winning track by fixing his porous defense and his stamina problems. I don’t think it’s possible.

Roach will likely be little more than the flavor of the week as far trainers go, and if Cotto loses or fails to look impressive against Rodriguez on October 5th, I expect Roach to be gone when Cotto fights again. It’s one of those things where Cotto is looking for a trainer that can magically change him to what he was earlier in his career and it’s just not likely to happen.

It could be that Cotto, even in his prime, was still a flawed fighter and not good enough to compete with the likes of Pacquiao, Mayweather and some of the other fighters.

I still remember Cotto struggling early in his career to beat the likes of Randall Bailey, DeMarcus Corley, Muhammad Abdullaev, Ricardo Torres, Paulie Malignaggi, Oktay Urkal and Shane Mosley.

Those fights were before Cotto ran into a prime Antonio Margarito and Cotto struggled to beat each one of these guys. Torres, Corley and Bailey all staggered him, and Urkal and Mosley were out-boxing him.



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