Mayweather says talk of Cotto fight is premature right now

By Boxing News - 07/19/2014 - Comments

_DSC7608(Photo credit: Idris Erba) By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) hasn’t even closed the chapter on Marcos Maidana (35-4, 34 KOs) and already fans are talking about whether he’ll face WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto again. Mayweather soundly beat Cotto by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2012 by the scores of 118-110, 117-111 and 117-111.

Cotto was seen as a shot fighter after that bout and especially after losing his next fight to Austin Tour in December of 2012. But with Cotto having beaten Delvin Rodriguez and 39-year-old Sergio Martinez, Cotto is now seen as a new fighter and completely rejuvenated now that he’s being trained by Freddie Roach.

Mayweather doesn’t want to talk future opponents right now while he’s getting ready for his Maidana fight. Reporters have already been petering Mayweather with questions about when/if he’s going to fight Amir Khan, and that question is way too premature as well.

“Slow down. Like I said before, Cotto’s done a hell of a job, but we saw what happened when he faced Floyd Mayweather, not taking anything away from Cotto,” Mayweather said via thaboxingvoice.com. “He’s a solid competitor, but once again, when Floyd Mayweather beat Cotto they said he was washed up. I mean, that’s what they said. Then he comes back and wins and they say he’s born-again. I beat [Juan Manuel] Marquez after taking a vacation, and then he goes and knocks [Manny] Pacquiao out and now they say Marquez is back again, but when I beat him they said he was over the hill but that’s how it is. Like I said before, I’m not just fighting my opponent, I’m fighting everybody else also.”

Cotto-Mayweather is a fight that likely won’t happen next year anyway, because Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to put a fight together between Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for next year in May, and that fight is a winnable one for Cotto. Arum is obviously going to match Cotto first against guys that he thinks he can beat for the most amount of money before putting him in with a guy that is going to beat him a second time guaranteed in a rematch against Mayweather.

It’s definitely true that Mayweather didn’t get a lot of credit for beating Cotto in 2012. Cotto was seen by a lot of boxing fans as a shot fighter following his losses to Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito.

Cotto did avenge the loss to Margarito by beating him in the rematch, but the win proved zero because Margarito’s surgically repaired eye swelled up quickly and caused the fight to be stopped just when Margarito was in the process of taking over the fight.



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