Cotto interested in fighting Sergio Martinez: Will Arum let him?

By Boxing News - 11/30/2010 - Comments

Image: Cotto interested in fighting Sergio Martinez: Will Arum let him?By Chris Williams: According to the latest boxing news, WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) likes the idea of fighting WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (46-2-2, 25 KO’s). This would be a great fight if Cotto’s promoter Bob Arum would allow him to take the fight with Martinez. However, the chances of that happening are slim and none, and it’s a fight that Arum wouldn’t have the excuse about Martinez being too big for Chavez because there’s only six pounds that separates the two fighters in their respective weight classes. My guess is Arum won’t let Cotto take the fight because of a couple of reasons.

To start with, Martinez doesn’t fight for Top Rank, Arum’s promotional team, and Arum tends to keep his fights in house rather than putting his fighters against fighters that promoted outside of Top Rank. And secondly, Martinez appears to be a lot better fighter than Cotto at this stage in Cotto’s career. If Arum were to put Cotto in with Martinez all that would happen is that Cotto would get beaten up and stopped.

Arum wants to put Cotto in with his highly hyped and totally unproven fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. next year, so I can’t see Arum wanting to match Cotto with Martinez. Arum could still match Cotto with Chavez Jr. after Martinez destroys Cotto, but that might cause fans to be a little less interested in watching the Cotto-Chavez Jr. fight. It really doesn’t matter, though, because Cotto can probably take a 100 beatings and still make short work of Chavez Jr. I see that as an easy fight that Cotto can make at any stage in his career, because Chavez Jr. looks very mediocre and more of a 2nd tier fighter than anyone remotely resembling a #1 contender in the middleweight division. Arum also wants to put Cotto in with Antonio Margarito for a rematch sometime next year after Margarito’s wounds heal from his battle with Manny Pacquiao. It won’t help that fight being made if Martinez totally decimates Cotto and leaves him a physical wreck afterwards for a fight against Margarito.

I do give credit for Cotto for wanting to fight Martinez, but it’s pretty obvious that Arum won’t bless this fight because of how good Martinez is.



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