Fans I wanted to share with you all that my return to the ring will be in early 2015!!. Thank you for the amazing support. #WarCotto

— Miguel A. Cotto (@RealMiguelCotto) September 3, 2014

By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) announced today that his next fight will be in early 2015 rather than on December 13th. This means that Cotto will likely be taking a soft opponent in January in order to get ready for his catch-weight title defense against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on Cinco de Mayo.

Of course, Cotto could choose not to fight Canelo on Cinco de Mayo at all, and instead look go stage the fight during the Puerto Rican Day Parade weekend on June 13th. If Cotto wants to play the A-side in the equation, he could give Canelo no other choice – either fight him on his Puerto Rican Day holiday or not at all.

Cotto has the WBC middleweight strap, and that gives him an advantage over the 24-year-old Canelo, because he wants to win that belt for some reason. I’m not sure why. Having the WBC 160 pound title will carry a huge burden for Canelo or whoever holds the belt due to WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin likely to be the WBC mandatory challenger if he beats Marco Antonio Rubio next month in their fight on October 18th.

Some boxing fans will no doubt be disappointed that Cotto won’t be fighting in December, but it’s really not that big of a deal because he will be fighting in early 2015, and it’s not as if he was going to fight someone dangerous.

Cotto is clearly going to be taking on a guy that he knows he can beat for his next fight rather than facing someone that could potentially expose him the way that he’s been exposed in the past in losses to Manny Pacquiao, Antonio Margarito, Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

At best, Cotto will fight Andy Lee or maybe Brandon Rios. There’s talk that Rios wants the Cotto fight, and I’m sure that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would love to put Rios in with Cotto. If the idea is a soft mismatch, then Rios would be perfect for Cotto. It would be kind of off putting for many boxing purists to see Cotto winning the WBC title against a fighter on his last leg in Sergio Martinez and then defending it against first a welterweight in Rios and then a junior middleweight in Canelo.