By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs) will be finishing his career this Saturday against Sadam Ali (25-1, 14 KOs) and he will NOT be coming out of retirement to fight Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez or Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin.
Cotto’s final fight of his 10-year pro career will be taking place against Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York. HBO World Championship Boxing will be on hand to televise the Cotto-Ali fight. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind seeing the 37-year-old Cotto stay on a little while longer for him to take some bigger fights.
Cotto has had to answer countless questions relating to whether he’ll come out of retirement to fight Canelo and GGG. Cotto is getting tired of the same questions being asked on this same subject from fans and boxing media. They don’t Cotto to go away without fighting Canelo and Golovkin. Cotto retiring against Sadam Ali is a letdown in the minds of many people. It’s not that Ali isn’t a good fighter.
It’s just that he’s not on the level of Golovkin and Canelo, and those are the fighters that the fans want to see Cotto ending his career against. Cotto’s safe exit against Sadam Ali is disappointing, because it’s not a big enough name for the fans to get excited about this fight.
Many boxing fans and writers alike believe that Cotto will be enticed to come out of retirement by Golden Boy Promotions to fight Canelo in a rematch. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says he would like nothing better than to put together a fight between Triple G and Cotto if the interest was there from the Puerto Rican star. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the interest is there.
Cotto has made a lot of money in his boxing career in fights against Manny Pacquiao, Canelo, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley, Zab Judah, Sergio Martinez, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ricardo Mayorga, Daniel Geale and Yuri Foreman. If Cotto were to stick around, it would be for the love of the sport rather than for the need of money.
“I would tell them to call each other,” said Cotto when asked by ESPN.com what he would say if he were approached by the management for Canelo and Golovkin to take a fight with one of them.
Cotto has noticed that he’s receiving a lot of criticism from the boxing public for him ending his career fighting a welterweight in Sadam Ali. Cotto doesn’t care. He feels he’s done enough in his career for him to walk away from the sport guilt free.
“The easiest thing in the world is to criticize, criticize and criticize,” said Cotto. I feel that I have had an excellent career in which I have achieved the main thing, which is to offer a future to my family, and I never stop to think about what think or what others say, or expect someone to feel satisfied since my sole purpose throughout my career as a boxer has been to try to provide the best for my family,” said Cotto.
It’ll be nice if Cotto can end his career with a knockout. It might not be the fight that the boxing public wants to see Cotto in, but it’ll be good if he can give the fans a going away present with a highlight reel KO.