By Chris Williams: As it turns out it may have been a stroke of luck that Miguel Cotto’s contract with Top Rank expired as of December 31st last year, as if he was still with the company his scheduled May 5th big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. would likely be little more than a dream, as Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would have in most probability put the clamps on keeping Cotto from fighting Mayweather Jr.
Instead, Cotto would be faced with the prospects of either agreeing to fight Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao at the 147lbs that Pacquiao requested or have to settle for whoever else Arum could dig up from his Top Rank stable, which it this point is looking kind of barren around the welterweight to junior middleweight level in terms of star fighters.
Arum told this to examiner.com writer Chris Robinson “He [Cotto] has to look out for himself, his family; I have absolutely not the least bit of animosity to Miguel. Miguel took the position that he was a free agent. We didn’t contest it, so we’re free agents also and we’ll make the best deal possible for our company.”
Sounds like Arum is trying to keep the door open for Cotto continuing to work with him in the future as a free agent. It’s a smart move by Arum, because if he was to start spouting off by bad-mouthing Cotto over this, he’d be making it very likely that Cotto wouldn’t bother working with him again in the future. Pacquiao is left with few choices of interesting fights and will probably have to fight Timothy Bradley now.
At least this way he can possibly still use Cotto for a future fight against Pacquiao if Cotto doesn’t look too bad against Mayweather Jr. on May 5th. Of course, a bad loss for Cotto will make it necessary for Arum to wait a considerable amount of time before he puts him back in with his Filipino star.
Arum has matched Pacquiao up against a fighter coming off of a loss in the past when he put Pacquiao in with Joshua Clottey, so you can’t really rule out Arum doing this. However, I think it would make him look a little silly if he does this. Arum might as well drag out Antonio Margarito for another fight with Pacquiao if he’s going to be willing to put Cotto in with Pacquiao off of a big loss to Mayweather.
I don’t think it’s possible given how little time left Pacquiao has left in the sport, but Arum doesn’t have much in the way of marketable fighters at welterweight and junior middleweight. Cotto, even coming off of a knockout loss to Mayweather, would still be a lot more popular than anyone else Arum has going for him to fight Pacquiao.
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