Cotto can’t beat Canelo without Roach, says Arum

By Boxing News - 06/18/2015 - Comments

arum55By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks that WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) can’t beat Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) without trainer Freddie Roach to get him ready for their fight on November 21st or 28th of this year.

Arum thinks that Roach’s training expertize gives Cotto a good chance in this fight. Without Roach, Arum sees Canelo dominating the fight. With Roach, and it’s a close fight that Cotto can win, says Arum.

Roach didn’t seem to help Manny Pacquiao in his recent fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May. Roach looked totally lost in that fight. That wasn’t the first time that one of Roach’s fighters got beaten soundly.

“It’s a very, very good fight,” Arum said about the Cotto-Canelo fight to esnewsreporting. “Without Freddie, it’s all Canelo. With Freddie, it’s a very close fight that Cotto can win. If Freddie continues training, then Cotto has a very good chance against Canelo,” Arum said.

Cotto-Canelo is a good fight. Arum is right about that. But I think he’s dead wrong to assume that Canelo would dominate without Roach training Cotto. I don’t think there would be any difference whatsoever if Cotto was or wasn’t trained by Roach. If Cotto loses the fight, it’ll be because he’s not good enough to beat the 24-year-old Canelo. If Cotto does get the victory over Canelo, it’ll be because he’s a better fighter than Canelo, and is good enough to get the win. I don’t see Roach having anything to do with it.

If Cotto feels dependent on Roach for him to fight well, then it might be a mental thing with Cotto, because he looks no different now than he was before Roach started training him. The only difference I can see is that Cotto now fights at middleweight, and he’s been selectively matched by putting him in with weaker or damaged fighters like Sergio Martinez, Delvin Rodriguez and Daniel Geale.

Cotto hasn’t gotten better. What’s changed is he’s facing poor opposition now designed to make him look good. I’d like to see how Cotto would do against the guys that beat him in 2012, in Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout, but I have a strong feeling that Cotto’s adviser Gaby Penagaricano, Roach and his promoters at Roc Nation wouldn’t be too eager to put him back in with Trout.

With Cotto’s three-fight winning streak at catch-weights, he’s convinced a lot of boxing fans that he’s been rejuvenated by Roach rather than him simply being put in with guys that he can actually at his age.



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