Floyd Mayweather Jr. to fight Miguel Cotto on May 5th!!!

By Boxing News - 02/01/2012 - Comments

Image: Floyd Mayweather Jr. to fight Miguel Cotto on May 5th!!!By Chris Williams: Unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) will be facing WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to RingTV.

Mayweather revealed this news at his license hearing on Wednesday with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The Mayweather-Cotto fight will take place at junior middleweight and Cotto’s World Boxing Association strap will be on the line so that Mayweather can try and win his 5th division world title.

It was thought before this that Mayweather Jr. would fight Mexican Saul Alvarez for his WBC junior middleweight crown, as May 5th is the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo and Alvarez would have been perfect for the fight. However, Mayweather Jr. felt that Alvarez needs more time to develop and capture more fans before he fights him.

Cotto, 31, is already a proven pay per view attraction and is currently behind only Mayweather himself and Manny Pacquiao as the boxing’s highest PPV fighter. A bout between Cotto and Mayweather makes a lot more sense than the idea that was being kicked around by Cotto’s former promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, who wanted to match Cotto again with Pacquiao despite the fact that Cotto had been previously hammered by Pacquiao in a 12th round TKO loss in 2009, and had done precious little to redeem himself since that loss.

Arum hasn’t put Cotto in with anyone tough since the Pacquiao fight, and that’s kept Cotto winning but it also has done little to increase interest in a Cotto-Pacquiao rematch because there hasn’t been much improvement in Cotto’s game.

In his last fight against Antonio Margarito last December, Cotto looked good for eight rounds but took punishment in the 9th from Margarito. The fight was halted in between rounds due to Margarito’s right eye closing, but it make you wonder whether Cotto would have been knocked out in last three rounds. He looked pretty beaten up at the end of the fight.



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