By Manuel Perez: At a recent press conference with Bob Arum and Miguel Cotto, Bob left open the possibility that Cotto could be facing Pacquiao in the near future, if Cotto is successful in defeating his opponent Michael Jennings this Saturday night at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York. Cotto battles Jennings for the vacant WBO title, a fight that is hard to make a prediction about the outcome because of Cotto’s destruction by the Tijuana Tornado Antonio Margarito in July.
Arum said this at the recent press conference on the 12th, “[If] Manny Pacquiao beats Ricky Hatton, why wouldn’t I try to make a match between my two best fighters or two of my best fighters, – Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao?”
Arum obviously knows that a fight between Cotto and Pacquiao would likely be a blockbuster, although it pale in comparison between Hatton-Pacquiao, De La Hoya-Pacquiao or a match between Margarito-Pacquiao, but it will still be the next biggest thing in 2009. Arum states that he hasn’t spoke to Pacquiao about a potential fight between him and Cotto, but it would stand to reason that he’ll be doing that if Pacquiao dispatched with Ricky Hatton on May 2nd.
Pacquiao is looking for big money fights, and a bout against Cotto or someone like Shane Mosley, are some of the biggest fights that Pacquiao could make in the near future. Arum states that Cotto has another fight in June against a still unnamed opponent, something which could hurt a potential match with Pacquiao should Cotto lose in June.
It’s probably going to be a big named fighter like Mosley, Andre Berto or Joshua Clottey. There’s not a whole lot of other options out there because of the weakened field in the welterweight division, which was made weaker by the California Athletic Commissions one year license revocation of Margarito.
Cotto has said numerous times in the past two weeks that he doesn’t believe that Margarito should fight while the year-long ban is still in effect, meaning that he wouldn’t be interested in traveling to Mexico to make their rematch happen. That’s regrettable, because Cotto would be better served to try and get the monkey off his back as soon as possibly by trying to avenge his defeat. What better time than now with Margarito at a weak point in his career after a double whammy of a loss to Mosley and the subsequent license revocation.
Pacquiao would be asking a lot of himself to have to fight someone as large as Cotto. It’s one thing fighting a washed up De La Hoya, who came into the fight starved and weakened by a crazy diet that he had been on to make the 147 pound weight, and a small Hatton, but quite another thing to fight a legitimate welterweight like Cotto, who’s in the prime of his career. Cotto might have too much strength and size for Pacquiao.
Manny might know this as well and opt to move back down to the safer waters of the lightweight division where he has unfinished business with Juan Manuel Marquez.
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