Cotto vs. De La Hoya: Coming Soon?

By Boxing News - 04/25/2008 - Comments

cotto685757.jpgBy Nate Anderson: In a recent conference call interview, Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) didn’t rule out a fight with undefeated WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs). This would, of course, be taking place after De La Hoya’s fights with Steve Forbes, scheduled for May 3rd, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. on September 20th in Las Vegas. De La Hoya, now 35, would be looking for a bout with Cotto likely to take place in December. However, for such a fight to take place, a lot of things would have to come in line before it could happen.

For instance, Cotto is facing Antonio Margarito on July 26th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, and that’s a fight that Cotto will have a hard time winning given Margarito’s size, experience and punch output advantage over the smaller Cotto. As such, there’s a good chance that Cotto may end up losing to Margarito, which would wipe out De La Hoya’s plans, if he is at all serious, about wanting a fight with Cotto. Likewise, De La Hoya, an aging fight that is no longer nearly as dominating as he once was earlier in his career, has bouts against Forbes and Mayweather to deal with. First things first, Forbes, a smaller light welterweight for most of his career, still has a lot of skills, enough possibly to beat De La Hoya.

Most people don’t give Forbes much of a chance at winning but if he can stay close up to the six or 7th round, he has an excellent chance at beating De La Hoya down the stretch, a time when De La Hoya often runs out of gas for most of his career. However, even with a win over Forbes, which doesn’t say much for De La Hoya given that he’s picked a smaller fighter for his tune-up bout, De La Hoya has little chance at beating Floyd Mayweather in September. Mayweather controlled the fight in the second half of their May 2007 bout, pot shotting De La Hoya to death down the stretch.

It should be easier next time, for De La Hoya has been inactive since then while concentrating on his promotional company “Golden Boy Productions.” Though I have no doubt that De La Hoya probably still wouldn’t care that he had lost four out of his last seven fights (five out of seven if you count his gift decision over Felix Sturm as another loss), and would still take on Cotto if the public showed any interest in a matchup.

Considering that the mass boxing public is largely ignorant about things such as records and all, I’d be willing to bet that they’d buy a fight between Cotto and De La Hoya hook, line and sinker regardless of how bad he looks against Forbes or if he loses to Mayweather again. Cotto, for his part, is rumored to be interested in a fight with De La Hoya, although it’s not surprising to see why. Floyd Mayweather, the WBC welterweight champion, is absolutely not interested in a fight with Cotto, and this, aside from a fight with De La Hoya, remains Cotto’s biggest chance at a huge mega fight that would likely earn him millions of dollars.

Certainly the Margarito fight won’t, even though it would seem like the much more exciting fight than between Cotto and De La Hoya or Mayweather. The public, outside of boxing insiders, know like about Margarito and hence it wouldn’t likely draw massive amounts of people looking to purchase the fight on PPV. For some reason, Margarito, a Mexican fighter, still hasn’t gained a huge following in the boxing community. This is probably the result of his loss to Paul Williams in 2007.