Cotto still wants 150 pound catchweight for Margarito rematch

By Boxing News - 08/23/2011 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto is still insistent on getting a 150 pound catchweight for his December 3rd rematch against Antonio Margarito. If that’s not enough, Cotto also wants Margarito to weigh no more than 160 pounds the morning of the fight, according to Steve Kim at maxboxing.com.

Kim said this on his twitter page: “Still no resolution to Marg-Cotto catch-weight, in addition to 150 pds, Cotto also wants a cap of 160-pds the morning after weigh-in.”

That sounds really bad like Cotto is trying to put things in his favor to ensure that he gets the win this time. It’s hard to understand the catchweight request given that Cotto has already fought twice at 154 without a catchweight handicap but all of a sudden he wants now for this fight. It makes you wonder whether Cotto is getting cold feet about this fight.

But to now add a cap of 160 pounds for morning of the fight, it’s a move that would seem designed to weaken Margarito. Does Cotto really need all of these advantages to beat a fighter as seemingly depleted as Margarito? I don’t think Margarito is much of a threat to Cotto now after the beatings he’s taken to Shane Mosley and Manny Pacquiao in the past two years.

It’s like Cotto is trying to tilt things in his favor for this fight when he really doesn’t need to. Cotto got badly beaten by Margarito three years ago in an 11th round TKO loss, but that was a long time ago. Margarito isn’t the same fighter he was back then and is coming off of eye surgery following his loss to Pacquiao. If Margarito agrees to all the things that Cotto is asking for he’s going to likely be weight drained for the fight and it won’t be a very interesting bout.

Margarito will make 150, but to ask him to make 160 the day of the fight is really pushing it. Margarito will likely re-hydrate to a little over 160, possibly 165 or so. But it’s pointless to even have a catchweight if Cotto is already the champion and has been fighting at this weight for over a year. I can sort of understand Manny Pacquiao’s requests for catchweights but not Cotto, not when he’s already the WBA champion. Why would a champion need a catchweight? Is he a junior middleweight champion or not? If Cotto needs a catchweight then it’s sad.



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