By Dan Ambrose: Thus far the 24-year-old Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) and his management team at Golden Boy Promotions have come up empty in trying to get a fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs).
Canelo says he’s given in on everything that Cotto has asked for and yet he still can’t get him to sign the contract. The reality seems to be that Canelo and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya need to give Cotto a bigger purse split to make the fight worthwhile, and because Canelo doesn’t have the bargaining power right now to throw his weight around like he could do if it were another opponent under different circumstances.
Cotto, 34, has a great backup option if Canelo doesn’t make the contract to his liking. Cotto can always look to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr in a rematch that would likely make even more money than the Canelo fight. Cotto obviously wants to fight Canelo, but if he’s not being given the purse split that he wants for the fight then why sign?
Canelo is the one who badly needs this fight, because his promoter Oscar De La Hoya believes that the fight could change Canelo’s career for the better in the same way that a Mayweather win over De La Hoya turned Mayweather into a big pay-per-view fighter.
Since Canelo absolutely needs the fight against Cotto to try and get to the next level in the PPV market, it means that Canelo is pretty much going to need to give in to what Cotto wants. It’s not like Cotto needs the Canelo fight, because he doesn’t. Cotto has already been fighting for many years as a pro and he’s already established himself as a big star.
Canelo needs to start beating top fighters to make himself a crossover star in the same way that De La Hoya became a crossover star. If Canelo doesn’t give Cotto what he wants in the negotiations then he won’t get the fight. Canelo would then need to settle for fighting Joshua Clottey, Gennady Golovkin, or whichever welterweight that is dragged up from 147 to face him.
Forget about Golovkin, because Canelo likely won’t get that fight. De La Hoya will probably weight that fight out as long as possible before he eventually makes it. Don’t expect to see that fight happen until Golovkin is 35 or 36, and showing signs of being a shot fighter.
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