Cotto says he wont move down to 147 to fight Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 04/16/2014 - Comments

cotto453443By Chris Williams: Unless former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao moves up to middleweight to meet Miguel Cotto at that weight, there won’t rematch. No doubt Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank would love the idea of staging a Pacquiao-Cotto 2 rematch. The money that could be made from a fight of this kind would be huge for the two fighters, as well as Top Rank. However, Cotto has moved up to the 160lb division, and he say he won’t move back down to fight Pacquiao at 147.

“I’m fighting at 160 right now,” Cotto told RingTV. “Manny’s at 147. I’m not going back down.”

Of course, this would be Pacquiao’s big chance to try and capture a 9th division world title if he were to move up in weight to take the fight with Cotto. For the fight to have any real meaning, Cotto will need to do his part by beating WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez in their fight on June 7th at Madison Square Garden in New York. But if Cotto wins that fight, Pacquiao could in theory move up in weight 13 points and challenge Cotto for his WBC 160lb belt for a chance to win a 9th division world title.

It would a much easier fight that if Pacquiao were to try and face the top middleweight in the division in Gennady Golovkin. That’s obviously a step too far for Pacquiao to take, and I don’t think Arum would ever let Pacquiao get 8 thousand miles of a fight with Golovkin. If a non-puncher like Tim Bradley was able to hurt Pacquiao last Saturday night in their rematch in Las Vegas, Golovkin would very likely make short work of Pacquiao in 1-2 rounds. But Cotto is a flawed fighter with a lot of miles on him, it would be a winnable fight for Pacquiao. I wouldn’t say it would be an easy one though, because there would be no catch-weight handicap for Pacquiao this time around like there was in his previous fight against Cotto in 2009. The question would be can Pacquiao beat Cotto without a weight handicap? I don’t know if he could.



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