By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya isn’t concerned that a fight between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) and De La Hoya’s fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) can still take place despite Cotto recently signing a multi-year deal with Roc Nation Sports.
De La Hoya doesn’t see the signing as being an obstacle to the Cotto-Canelo fight getting made this year after Canelo gets done with his fight against James Kirkland on May 9th, and Cotto finishes up with his June 6th fight, which is rumored to be against 41-year-old Cornelius Bundrage.
“I’m looking forward to many dealings in the future with Jay-Z and Roc Nation. This is a great thing for boxing. We feel that Miguel Cotto vs. Canelo Alvarez can be made,” De La Hoya said via Fighthype.
De La Hoya is probably right. With Cotto not showing any interest in fighting WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, leaves only Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao and Canelo as the main options for Cotto. He’s already said previously that he only wants big fights at this point in his career. He recently defeated a way past his best Sergio Martinez last year in June in what was a big fight, but it was also a fight that failed to bring in impressive pay-per-view numbers.
If Cotto doesn’t face Canelo then that will narrow the field to just Pacquiao and Mayweather. However, Cotto showed recently that he’s not beyond taking a no name opponent when he fought Delvin Rodriguez in October 2013.
If Cotto chooses to face the 41-year-old Bundrage, who is arguably as popular as Delvin Rodriguez, then it’ll show that Cotto is fine with taking the lesser names as well as the bigger names.
It’s hard to imagine that Cotto would bother facing Bundrage, because that is so far away from the big names that it’s almost senseless. If that’s who Cotto’s adviser Gaby Penagaricano is picking out for him to fight instead of Canelo or Golovkin, then that is very disappointing.
“That’s [Canelo vs. Cotto] the fight the boxing public wants to see,” De La Hoya said.
The fight fans do want to see Canelo-Cotto, but I think the hardcore fans prefer the Golovkin vs. Cotto fight a lot more than seeing Canelo vs. Cotto, mainly because Canelo has already been exposed in his fights against Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The casual boxing fans, of course, want to see Canelo vs. Cotto a lot more than a fight between Cotto and Golovkin or Canelo. The reason for that is due to Canelo having a much bigger fan base in the United States compared to Golovkin.
Canelo’s popularity will likely remain so even if he gets beaten again and again. He’s someone that will likely always be more popular than Golovkin when it comes to the casual fans.
The Canelo-Cotto fight can get made, but it’s going to take some give on Canelo’s part. It seems like Cotto is willing not to take the fight at all unless he gets the purse split he’s looking for.
Cotto already has enough money to live the rest of his life on, and I don’t think he’s too concerned that he’s walking away from a tremendous payday against Canelo, even if he didn’t get the purse split that he wants to get.
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