Roach: Cotto can make 147 for the right fight

By Boxing News - 12/22/2015 - Comments

roach991By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach is still having a hard time digesting his fighter former WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto’s 12 round unanimous decision loss to Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) from last month on November 21st at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Roach still thinks Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) deserved the victory and he believes that the scores – 118-110, 119-109 and 117-111 – handed down by the three judges were too wide. Unfortunately for Cotto, he lost the fight, and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a rematch anytime soon.

In the meantime, Roach isn’t sure what Cotto is going to do. He feels that he can still fight, but he doesn’t know where he’ll be fighting. Roach thinks that Cotto’s best weight is 154. However, he does think that he can get down to 147 for the right fight.

“154 is a better weight for him, but for the right fight, I’m sure we could make 147, yeah. It could happen,” Roach said to Fighthub.

If Cotto is going to continue his career, he almost has to move down to 147 or have one of the welterweights move up to fight him at a catch-weight of 150 unless he wants to drag the fighter all the way to 154. As we saw in the Canelo fight, Cotto lacks the size to fight against big middleweights.

Canelo doesn’t see himself as a middleweight, but he clearly is not only a middleweight but a very, very big one. Canelo could easily fight at super middleweight being as heavy as he is. Cotto can’t be fighting in the 160lb division, because those guys rehydrate into the 170s, and some even more than that.

It’s not worth it for Cotto to fight the best junior middleweights, because there aren’t any big names in the division. Further, the top fighters in the 154lb division would be very tough outs for a small fighter like Cotto. If you put Cotto in with the top junior middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara or Jermell Charlo, I think it would end badly for the 5’7” Cotto. He just doesn’t have the size to be fighting those guys.

Cotto might not want to admit it, but he’s really a welterweight. WBA “regular” welterweight champion and IBF champion Kell Brook are both fighters that rehydrates to the 160s for their fights at welterweight. That’s what gives them such an advantage over their opponents. If those guys are having success in the welterweight division in melting down in weight, then Cotto should be doing the same thing. He rehydrates to around 160.

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Cotto is too small to be fighting in the junior middleweight division, and he always ways too small. That’s why he lost to Austin Trout. That’s 170+ junior middleweight. Cotto needs to do what Thurman and Brook are doing by melting down to make weight at 147, and then rehydrate up to the 160ls so that he can fight the top guys and not find himself outsized by junior middleweights or worse huge middleweights like Canelo.

If Cotto move back down to welterweight, he could get fights against the likes of Kell Brook, Danny Garcia, Tim Bradley, Amir Khan, Manny Pacquiao [before he retires] and Shawn Porter. Obviously the talent has thinned out in the welterweight division with Floyd Mayweather Jr. retired and Marcos Maidana no longer fighting, but Cotto could still get some interesting fights. A rematch against Pacquiao would be a great fight because Cotto is bigger name, and capable of rehydrating to the 160s.

There wouldn’t be a catch-weight that Cotto would have to deal with like there was when he fought Pacquiao six years ago in 2009. Cotto was smaller back then, and not rehydrating to the 160lbs like now. If Cotto had the size that he has now back in 2009, I think he would have beaten Pacquiao.

It would have been really difficult for the 145lb Pacquiao to beat Cotto at 162. It would be like Cotto vs. Canelo. Cotto’s punches had no effect on Canelo because the guy was so big that night. Roach thinks that Canelo rehydrated 30 pounds to come into the fight at 190 in that fight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true. If Cotto could fight Pacquiao a second time at welterweight, it would be a great fight and would be a big money fight for both guys.



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