By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions took to twitter earlier today to voice his concerns about his frustrations with the slow movement in the negotiations between his flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) and WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) for their proposed fight this year.
It seems that the negotiations are at a stall due to the purse split, and De La Hoya clearly doesn’t like it. De La Hoya thinks that the 34-year-old Cotto could wind up facing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr in a rematch before he fights Canelo and this has De La Hoya unhappy.
“I get sick to my stomach that the top fighters today don’t fight the best. Wouldn’t be surprised if Mayweather fights Cotto #Canelo5Mayo,” De La Hoya said on his social media site.
This sounds like the negotiations between Cotto and Canelo aren’t going swimmingly. If De La Hoya is sounding that depressed about the negotiations then it’s quite possible Cotto could go in another direction towards a possible fight against Mayweather. However, if he does that then he’ll have to take the fight soon.
Cotto is going to need to make up his mind about whether he wants to hold onto the World Boxing Council middleweight title because the WBC wants him to defend it against WBC interim champion Gennady Golovkin after Cotto gets through with his optional title defense in the first part of 2015.
Well you can’t blame Cotto for taking a fight against Mayweather instead of the red-haired Canelo, because it’s a fight that makes sense. If Mayweather doesn’t fight Manny Pacquiao next, then the most logical fight for him is a fight against Cotto. It’s a fight that would likely do at least 1.4 million pay-per-view buys, and the boxing public would love, at least the casual fans.
It makes sense if you’re Cotto, because he loses nothing by fighting Mayweather first. A loss to him won’t hurt Cotto’s popularity because Mayweather’s considered to be the best fighter in the sport, so Cotto’s popularity won’t take a hit if he loses to him. Canelo, 24, will always be there for Cotto afterwards, and he can then fight him and cash out into retirement.
Cotto’s legal adviser Gaby Penagaricano says that the Cotto-Canelo fight is only 60 percent done. They’ve still not agreed on the cash part of the fight, and that means there’s going to need to be more movement by Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions on that end of the negotiations if they want the fight to go ahead. It’s unknown what kind of purse split that Cotto and his adviser Penagaricano are looking at for the fight, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they’re looking for a better split than 60-40 to get the fight done.
Cotto would be better off taking an easy optional defense against a fringe contender for his first defense of his WBC title, and then look to get a fight against Mayweather in the second part of 2015 after vacating the WBC 160lb title. Then after those two fights are out of the way, Cotto can face Canelo in 2016 and cash out with that fight.
If Cotto beats Canelo in a competitive fight, they can have a rematch and that would an opportunity for Cotto to get another payday before he walks away from the sport. He could also slip in a fight against Manny Pacquiao if the Filipino fighter is willing to come up and fight him at 154 or at a catch-weight of 156.
Cotto needs to shut down any requests from Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum to drag him down to 150 to give Pacquiao a handicap against Cotto. He already gave Pacquiao a handicap in their first fight in 2009 when he fought him at a catch-weight, so he doesn’t need to do it again.
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