Arum wants to match Margarito against Cotto next in 2011

By Boxing News - 11/15/2010 - Comments

Image: Arum wants to match Margarito against Cotto next in 2011By Jason Kim: Two-time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) took a terrible beating in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to Manny Pacquiao last Saturday night at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. Fighting in front of 41,734 fans in the stadium, Margarito gave it his best shot against Pacquiao, but he was far too slow and wide open on defense to make much of a fight of it. Margarito did hurt Pacquiao with some body shots in the 6th, but he was unable to take advantage of it and spent the rest of the fight taking huge punishment.

After the fight, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who promotes both Pacquiao and Margarito, said he’d like to match Margarito up against Miguel Cotto next year in a rematch that Arum wants to put in the Yankee Stadium, in New York to take advantage of Cotto’s huge Puerto Rican fan base in the area. Arum also promotes Cotto, so this would be yet another inhouse fight pitting Top Rank fighters facing each other. However, it might not be a great idea for this fight to take place next if Arum wants Margarito to be at his best, because he received a terrible beating from Pacquiao and sustained a fractured right orbital bone in the loss.

Both of Margarito’s eyes were nearly closed from the shots from Pacquiao, and Margarito ended up getting hit by 474 of the 1069 punches that Pacquiao threw with most of them being head shots. That’s a lot of punishment for any fighter to take, and Margarito was already stopped last year by Shane Mosley.

Margarito defeated Cotto by an 11th round TKO two years ago in an exciting fight in which Margarito wore Cotto down with heavy pressure. This is a rematch that Cotto was against for a long time but he seems to have changed his mind recently. Who knows? Perhaps it’s because Margarito is no longer looking like the same fighter he once was and Cotto is looking for some payback. But part of it is because Cotto really doesn’t have a lot of appealing alternatives other than Pacquiao and Margarito. Cotto wants to take on only big named fighters and guys like Mike Jones, Andre Berto and some of the up and coming fighters aren’t popular enough to bring him the kind of payday he’s looking for in an opponent. Arum seems reluctant to match Cotto back up with Pacquiao right now, perhaps because of the criticism he’d receive from fans who don’t want to see a rematch because of the one-sided nature of their fight last year. Pacquiao beat Cotto about as easy as he did Margarito, except Cotto ran from Pacquiao instead of trying to slug it out after the 4th.



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