By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight title holder Miguel Cotto (39-4, 31 KOs) says that Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and the Top Rank promoted Julio Cesar Chavez Jr are both on his target list as potential opponents for him to step into the ring against. Cotto says he wants to rekindle the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico rivalry.
Cotto, 33, is currently on vacation, but once he comes back he’s going to be sitting down and making a decision about who he’ll be facing in his next fight. December 6th is the target date for Cotto’s next fight. It’s unclear whether he’ll be choosing to defend his WBC middleweight title or not for his next fight.
If Cotto chooses to fight Chavez Jr next then it would seem highly unlikely that the fight will be at middleweight because Chavez Jr can’t make weight for the division at this point in his career. But of course if the money is good enough anything is possible. The chances of Chavez Jr. being physically able to fight after draining down from the 190s to making weight at 160 is unknown.
“I’m enjoying my last victory and most of all waiting to see what happens in my career,” Cotto said to ESPN Deportes. “There are many possible names, such as Canelo and Chavez, but there again, we are still waiting. This is business. We will ensure the best option for Miguel Cotto. But it is a fact that the Mexico-Puerto Rican rivalry can be rekindled.”
Cotto really only has three names – Floyd Mayweather Jr, Canelo or Chavez Jr – if he wants to get a huge payday. He could fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, the guy that most fans recognize as the legitimate champion at middleweight, but that would a likely massacre loss for Cotto with him getting routed by Golovkin and not getting the big money that he’d get in a fight against Canelo, Chavez Jr or Mayweather.
If Cotto wants the Canelo fight in December, then he’s going to need to tell Bob Arum of Top Rank that’s what he wants, because Arum seems to be leaning in the direction of having the Canelo-Cotto fight take place on the Mexican holiday Cinto de Mayo next May. Cotto would be smarter to wait until that date before he takes that fight, because he’ll likely make less money if he faces Canelo in December.
The chances are high that Cotto will take a soft opponent in December in order not to mess things up for a Canelo fight in May, if that’s the direction he wants to go in. The Canelo fight is a winnable one for Cotto, because we’ve seen Canelo exposed in three of his last four fights against Austin Trout, Mayweather and Erislandy Lara. Cotto would be getting him at the right time with Canelo’s confidence likely at an all-time low after his controversial/gift decision over Lara.
Cotto-Chavez Jr would be a great fight for December, and definitely a winnable one for Cotto if uses his popularity to drag Chavez Jr down to 160 to weaken him enough to beat him. Chavez Jr might make the weight, but he’d likely be a zombie for the actual fight, and Cotto could then make a mess of Chavez Jr the same way he did against 39-year-old Sergio Martinez with his bum knee last June. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach is looking like a genius because of that win right now instead of someone who was the benefit of having his fighter face a guy at the end of his career.
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