Roach wants Cotto-Martinez at 160

By Boxing News - 10/08/2013 - Comments

martinez452By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) is offering to fight Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) at a catch-weight of 158 lbs. next year, but Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach says that Cotto can fight Martinez at the full weight of 160 rather the need for a catch-weight.

Both Cotto and Martinez wants the fight, and Cotto’s promoter Bob Arum is looking to stage it during the Puerto Rican parade weekend next June in New York City. Sergio and his adviser Sampson Lewkowicz are agreeable to having the fight staged there.

Lewkowicz told ESPN “Freddie Roach, who I respect a lot, said that he wanted it to be at a full 160 pounds, so the weight will not be an issue. I believe Roach is right in that it should be 160, but if it’s 159 we have no problem with that, either.”

Roach should be working hard to try and get Martinez down as low as possible for this fight because Cotto is going to need some help if he’s to win this fight. He’s too short and it’s a bad match-up style-wise. Cotto doesn’t do well against fighters that use movement because he’s slow on his feet, and he can’t the ring down.

If you watch what Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr. did to Cotto when they used movement then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Cotto is built like a little tank, and he’s mainly good at slugging it out in close quarters with his opponents. If you put him in with a fighter that makes him use his short legs, he doesn’t look nearly as good.

Martinez is getting old at 39, but he can still move around the ring and flick his jabs. If he does a good job of rehabbing his knee this time then it should be an easy fight.

Martinez didn’t look good in his last fight against Martin Murray last April, but a big part of that was because Martinez’s surgically repaired knee hadn’t been rehabbed. It was still weak and as soon as he started putting a lot of stress on it in the fight, he hurt it again. If Martinez rehabs the knee correctly this time then he should be almost as good as new.

Roach is a little too high on Cotto after his win over Delvin Rodriguez last weekend. He thinks that a win over him means that Cotto is better than ever, and that’s probably not the case at all. It just means that Cotto was put in with a weak opponent that was perfect for him to beat up on. It’s not as if Rodriguez hadn’t been beaten badly before by other fighters. He has losses against guys like Ashley Theophane and Rafal Jackiewicz.

Roach may think he’s brought Cotto back to what he was earlier in his career, but I don’t think that’s realistic. If it is then Roach should test that theory by putting Cotto in with a good B level fighter like Willie Nelson or Carlos Molina before he puts him in with Sergio Martinez. If Cotto can beat one of those guys then Roach should be thinking about a Martinez fight, but to go from Delvin Rodriguez to Sergio is going to be a huge step up in class that Cotto probably won’t be ready for.



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