By Dan Ambrose: Sometimes boxing can be really unfair. For example, WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) recently schooled former three division world champion Miguel Cotto in beating him by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision earlier this month in a fight where WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was supposed to fight the winner – but only if it was Cotto.
Instead of getting the Alvarez fight, which would seem like the logical thing given his impressive victory, Trout isn’t likely going to get a fight with him or any of the other top fighters. If Trout is lucky, he might get a unification bout with IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius Bundrage, but that’s not exactly a big fight.
Guys like Cotto and Canelo Alvarez have a leg up on Trout, because they have tons of fans from their home countries. Cotto, who was born in Puerto Rico, is hugely popular with Puerto Rican fans, and the Mexican Alvarez is a big star in Mexico. Those guys have a big advantage over Trout, and even though they may not be as good as him, they’re still likely going to get much bigger fights.
You can’t say Alvarez is getting these fights because he’s more experienced than Trout, because Alvarez is only 22 and he’s fought mostly 2nd tier older and smaller guys. He’s not faced anyone that you can call a dangerous or highly skilled fighter that wasn’t over the hill when he faced them.
I think Trout is going to have a hard time making it to the top unless he can somehow persuade someone like Alvarez to fight him. Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, recently said that Trout still have to prove himself worthy before he’ll put him in with Alvarez.
I don’t know what more that Trout would have to do after beating Cotto. It’s not as if Alvarez has faced better opposition than him. I thought Schaefer was just making an excuse so that he wouldn’t have to keep facing the questions from boxing fans for why he won’t match Alvarez with Trout.
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