By Dan Ambrose: 33-year-old Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) wants to set up a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) in the 2nd part of 2014 after Cotto’s hoped for fight against WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez on June 7th in New York.
Cotto wants the fight against the 23-year-old red-haired Canelo even if he doesn’t get the fight with Sergio in June. That fight is still up in the air about whether it’ll happen or not, because the negotiations have been very tough. Right now it’s unknown if the Cotto-Sergio fight will happen.
For Cotto, it might be better that the fight night not take place, because Sergio would likely come into it in tip top shape after having nursed his knee and hand injuries for over a year. Instead of getting the Sergio who fought Martin Murray, Cotto would likely be fighting the Sergio that dominated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in September 2012.
“After June, we have six more months and at any moment in those six months we can have a fight with Canelo,” Cotto told ESPN.
Cotto looks like he’s attempting to maximize the income he makes from his fights. By facing Sergio and Canelo in back to mack fights, Cotto could make a lot of money in 2014. However, the Canelo fight might not happen unless Cotto can beat Martinez. It’s hard to imagine Canelo agreeing to fight Cotto if he loses to Sergio, because he would be seen as going after Sergio’s leftovers. Canelo is an image conscious fighter and he wouldn’t want to face Cotto until he redeemed himself from the loss to Sergio by beating some quality contenders in the division.
A lot of boxing fans believe that trainer Freddie Roach has turned Cotto’s career around because of how good he looked in destroying fringe contender Delvin Rodriguez last October in stopping him in the 3rd round. However, this wasn’t a great fighter that Cotto defeated, and it’s quite possible that he would have failed had he been put in with a good junior middleweight with talent. Roach is talking as if he turned Cotto’s career by having him throw more left hooks, but that’s probably far from the reality. You can’t say that Cotto has done anything to turn his career around until he proves he can beat guys like Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Those guys both beat Cotto.
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