Roach saw Cotto as the best option for Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 02/03/2012 - Comments

Image: Roach saw Cotto as the best option for PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach saw Miguel Cotto as the best option for Pacquiao to fight in terms of excitement and bringing money to the table, according to an interview of Roach at Primera Hora.

Pacquiao is expected to fight WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) next on June 9th.

Roach said “I understood that was the lucrative and most competitive battle for us.”

Yes, it looks as if Pacquiao made the mistake of not agreeing to a 150 catchweight that Cotto wanted before he’d agree to fight him again. Cotto wasn’t going to drain himself down to 147 just so Pacquiao can have yet another weight advantage against him.

Unfortunately, Pacquiao didn’t understand that by saying no to the three pound catchweight that Cotto asked for it would mean that he’d be stuck fighting a less popular fighter in Bradley and the fight would likely end up making a lot less money than if Pacquiao had simply five Cotto the tiny catchweight he was asking for.

Roach saw the advantage of having Cotto as Pacquiao’s opponent but it looks like he didn’t talk Pacquiao into agreeing to it. Now Pacquiao is going to be fighting Arum’s recent Top Rank signee Bradley in a fight that doesn’t really excite too many boxing fans. It’s like going backwards in time to where Pacquiao fought another one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters Joshua Clottey and the fight drew a disappointing 660,000 PPV buys.

Roach noted that Cotto had improved since the time that he lost to Pacquiao in 2009, and was impressed with his performance recently against Antonio Margarito last December. Roach feels that Cotto is getting better as a fighter and wishes him a lot of luck in his scheduled May 5th fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Mayweather didn’t have any issues about agreeing to fight Cotto above 150, and he took advantage of Pacquiao’s hesitation by agreeing to the fight.

Arum can probably talk Cotto into fighting Pacquiao after Mayweather beats him in May. I imagine Pacquiao will be agreeable by then to fighting Cotto at 150. Too bad he was too slow to move this time.



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