Will Cotto skip Canelo fight for Mayweather rematch?

By Boxing News - 06/09/2015 - Comments

1-cotto (12)By Dan Ambrose: Despite WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) talking about wanting to face Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) in his next fight in October or November, you can’t rule out the possibility that Cotto could face Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) in a rematch in September if Mayweather decides he wants to pick out the Puerto Rican fighter to get a big money fight against him next rather than having to settle for a smaller payday against fighters like Amir Khan or Kell Brook.

Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach said that he wants to see Cotto and Mayweather fight each other again, and he thinks Cotto will beat Mayweather now due to the improvement he’s made in Cotto’s game.

It would be a huge move by Mayweather to jump in front of Canelo and take his fight against Cotto before he can get it. Not only would Mayweather be guaranteeing himself the biggest possible payday in September, he would also be putting Canelo in the position where he’d be stuck getting sloppy seconds against a beaten Cotto rather than one coming off of three straight wins, albeit against older fighters over-the-hill in Delvin Rodriguez, Sergio Martinez and Daniel Geale.

“I do. It’s obviously a tough fight,” Roach said when asked if he thinks Cotto can beat Mayweather now. “I do think Miguel is big enough and strong enough to beat him [Mayweather]. We’d have to fight a perfect fight, but I think we’re very capable of doing that,” Roach said.

It’s better for Cotto to take the Mayweather fight now before the fight with Canelo because Mayweather could retire after September, and Cotto will have missed his chance of getting a second fight against him. In addition to that, the Canelo fight is always going to be there for Cotto because Canelo is only 24-years-old. He’s not someone that is going to go away anytime soon, and with the careful match-making that’s being done for him by his promoter Oscar De La Hoya, I don’t see Canelo getting beaten by anyone until he eventually gets matched against Gennady Golovkin. De la Hoya already said he’s going to wait two more years before he lets Canelo fight Golovkin, who will be 35 by that time and maybe old enough for Canelo to beat him.

If Cotto takes the Mayweather fight now in September, he’ll get the huge payday against him, and then will be able to move on and take on Canelo for another payday. If Cotto is still in one piece after those two tough fights, he can wrap up his career with a farewell payday against Golovkin in 2016. It makes a lot of sense if you’re Cotto to play it like that and make Canelo wait until after he’s faced Mayweather a second time.



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