Miguel Cotto vs. Sergio Martinez a done deal for June 7th at MSG, in New York

By Boxing News - 02/20/2014 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: After ages and ages of negotiations the June 7th fight between WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) and Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) is a done deal for Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight will be on HBO pay-per-view, and there’s still no word about who will be on the undercard. This fight is 3-4 years late in taking place, however, as both guys are clearly not the same fighters they once were at this point in their careers.

Martinez probably wins this fight if he has anything left in the tank. He looked like an old fighter last April in getting what many boxing fans felt was a gift 12 round decision over Martin Murray. I thought Martinez won the fight based activity, but it wasn’t a great performance by him.

Martinez will be turning 39 this Friday, and the injuries are starting to become a problem for him. He’s at an age where just getting through training camp in one piece has got to be a major ordeal. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or two postponements for the Cotto-Martinez fight due to injuries for Martinez. He’s just too old at this point for him to be someone that you can rely on in making it through a training camp in one piece. Even if Martinez does make it through the camp and into the fight. he’ll like break a hand or wrist, and tear up a knee again like he’d done in his last two fights.

Cotto has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights in the last two years. While Cotto won his last fight against Delvin Rodriguez, they had to back him off from top opposition for him to get that win. Freddie Roach, Cotto’s new trainer, thinks that he’s brought him back to what he was earlier in his career by having him throw more left hooks, but that’s perhaps more wishful thinking than reality. Cotto would have easily beaten the likes of Delvin Rodriguez if he had thrown nothing but jabs for the entire fight. After all, Austin Trout totally dominated Rodriguez by a 12 round decision in 2012.

Cotto wants to try and win a 4th division world title, and that’s why he’s moving up in weight to the 160 lb division. I don’t blame him for that, but it’s kind of a pointless endeavor if Cotto isn’t going to fight the middleweight champion that boxing fans see as the legitimate title holder at 160 in Gennady Golovkin. He’s taken over the division, which means that what Cotto will be accomplishing, should he beat Martinez, is beat a paper champion and not the guy. When you look at it like that, it takes a lot of the interest in the fight, and you see it more as just a couple of aging fighters that are past their prime fighting for a belt that is not in possession of the best fighter at 160.



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