By Dan Ambrose: 33-year-old Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) is reportedly considering an offer of $15 million to face 38-year-old WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2, 28 KO’s) on June 7th in a pay-per-view fight in Madison Square Garden, in New York, according to espndeportes.
The offer of $15 million, if it’s a legit one, from Top Rank, beats the the $10 million offer made by Golden Boy Promotions for Cotto to fight former WBA/WBC light middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) on March 8th on Showtime PPV. It’s still unknown if Golden Boy will choose to top the offer made by Top Rank to set up the Canelo-Cotto fight.
It might be more difficult for Golden Boy because Canelo is going to want to get a big payday, and it’s unclear how many PPV buys a Canelo-Cotto fight would draw. With Cotto having been beaten in 2 out of his last 3 fights, this fight might not bring in enough buys to pay Cotto $15 million+ and Canelo something similar to that.
Top Rank hasn’t confirmed yet whether they’ve offered Cotto the $15 million to fight Martinez. But that offer would be very tough for Golden Boy to match or surpass given that the red-haired Canelo will want a lot of money to take the fight with Cotto and that could get in the way of Golden Boy being able to match Top Rank’s offer.
With Sergio, he’d like be willing to take less than Cotto in order to make the fight. But with Canelo, I can see him wanting a 50-50 deal at least to fight Cotto. Would Canelo be willing to accept a 70-30 split with Cotto just to make the fight happen, I doubt it. He’d smart to do that because he’s only 23, and he’s got plenty of time to make huge money in his career.
Right now, Canelo needs the fights against guys like Cotto to further his star status, and if that means taking a lot less than him to make the fight happen, then Canelo should be willing to do that. Cotto is 10 years older than Canelo, and he’s been a star a lot longer. Canelo should see the big picture and let Cotto take the lion’s share of the loot in order to get him as an opponent for March 8th.
Even if Golden Boy tops the $15 million offer made by Top Rank, they could come back with an even bigger offer. I think it’s crazy because a Cotto-Martinez fight won’t bring in the kind of PPV money that a Cotto-Canelo fight will, and that puts Golden Boy in a better position to outbid Top Rank because the PPV numbers will likely be enough for the fight to turn a profit for them.
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