De La Hoya says Canelo will likely wait until May 2015 for Cotto before fighting again

By Boxing News - 10/07/2014 - Comments

canelo6767By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya says his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will probably be sitting out of action to let his injured ankle heal until May of 2015 when De La Hoya hopes the 24-year-old Canelo can get a big fight against the likes of WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto.

Canelo was supposed to be fighting on December 6th against Joshua Clottey, but Canelo pulled out of the fight on Monday due to an injured ankle that has been giving him problems since before his fight against Erislandy Lara last July.

According to Dan Rafael of ESPN, the doctors have advised Canelo to rest his ankle for 6 weeks and then begin physical therapy.

“He’d rather take care of it now because 2015 is going to be a huge year for him,” De La Hoya said via Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports. “I believe Canelo is going straight to a major fight next year and so he wants to get this taken care of and put it behind him.”

This means that that the 37-year-old Clottey is out of luck for a rescheduling of a fight against Canelo. It’s not a big deal for boxing fans that Canelo won’t be fighting Clottey, because it wasn’t a popular fight to begin with. Fight fans wanted to see Canelo fight someone that was at least partially relevant like James Kirkland, even though Kirkland had been out of the ring since last year in December.

Clottey has fought only three times in the past four years since his loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2010, and it was just a very strange selection by Golden Boy to put Canelo in with him. It wasn’t as bad as their choice of matching Canelo against Alfredo Angulo earlier this year, but it was nearly as bad because boxing fans showed no interest in seeing Canelo fight Clottey.

Many fans figured that with De La Hoya already saying that Canelo is going to be the face of boxing then he should be facing the best fighters instead of guys from the past like Clottey.

“Going right into a Cotto fight is a big possibility,” De La Hoya said to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “This is a minor setback. I hear in Canelo’s voice the enthusiasm about fighting on Cinco de Mayo weekend.”

At 24, Canelo already getting injuries isn’t a good thing. You would have to hope this isn’t the start of many future cancelled/postponed fights due to injuries. Some fighters just tend to break down more than others, but usually this kind of thing doesn’t start until a fighter starts aging.

Canelo might be rusty by the time he gets in the ring with Cotto next May if the fight can get made by Golden Boy, but then again so will Cotto. He hasn’t fought since last June when he beat 39-year-old Sergio Martinez by a 10th round stoppage, and that really wasn’t a fight due to Martinez’s surgically repaired right knee not looking strong or stable.

The last time Cotto had a real fight that was competitive was two years ago when he was beaten by Austin Trout in December of 2012. Since then, it’s been mismatches for Cotto against Delvin Rodriguez and 39-year-old Sergio Martinez.



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