De La Hoya: Canelo would KO Cotto in rematch

By Boxing News - 01/17/2016 - Comments

canelo100By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto is one of the potential opponents Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is thinking of matching up with WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) for his next fight on May 7th. A rematch with Cotto is a sure thing money maker for Canelo and Golden Boy. De La Hoya believes Canelo would knockout Cotto in a rematch.

It’s unclear why De La Hoya believes that Canelo would be able to stop Cotto in a second fight when he never came close to scoring a knockout in their fight last November.
Currently, the names that are being considered for Canelo’s next fight on 5/7 are Willie Monroe Jr., Vanes Martirosyan, Gabriel Rosado and Cotto.

The reason why it might be necessary for Golden Boy to setup a rematch between Cotto and Canelo is because the May 7th fight will be on HBO PPV. A fight between Canelo and Monroe, Martirosyan or Rosado is not PPV worthy fights.

Golden Boy can certainly shove a non-worthy PPV fight involving Canelo down the throats of the boxing public if they want to, but it’s only going to backfire with the fight doing poor PPV results. That’s why it’s important that Golden Boy finds a quality opponent for Canelo to fight if they want to bring in decent money for Canelo and their company.

“I think it would be very interesting [Canelo-Canelo rematch] because there were some comments where some people thought Cotto won. For me, if a rematch would be given, Canelo knocks him out, and would knock him out without any problems,” De La Hoya said to ESPN Deportes. “It would be interesting but obviously that’s why we’re going to talk to his team” said De la Hoya.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Canelo faces Cotto in a second fight in May. However, it might be a difficult rematch to make because Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach is talking about wanting a rehydration limit to keep Canelo from putting back on so much weight in a rematch. Roach believes that Canelo put on 30 pounds after he rehydrated for their catch-weight fight at 155lbs. If Canelo did put that much weight on, it means that he would have walked into the ring in the 180s for the Cotto fight.

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While there’s no rules stating that a fighter can’t rehydrate as much as they want after making weight, Roach is talking about wanting something written into the contract to keep Canelo from doing this. There’s no rules saying that Cotto and Canelo had to fight at 155lbs, but they worked that deal out between themselves for the fight.

You could understand why a rehydration limit would be beneficial for Cotto, because he likely would have had little problems beating Canelo if the two of them weighed the same amount. Cotto looked like the better fighter. His main problem was he just wasn’t big enough to beat someone as heavy as Canelo looked in that fight. It looked like Cotto was fighting a light heavyweight that night in dealing with the tank-like Canelo.

I don’t think Canelo and Golden Boy would ever agree to a rehydration limit for any fight. I don’t think Canelo could keep from rehydrating to believe 170. I think he’s too big at this point. Even if Canelo did agree to a rehydration limit, I think he would likely miss the weight like he did in his fight against Matthew Hatton in missing the catch-weight. Cotto would then still be facing a much bigger fighter than himself. If Cotto is going to agree to fight Canelo in a rematch, then he’s going to need to assume that he’ll be outweighed by a considerable amount by the time he gets inside the ring. Canelo will obviously be a professional in making the catch-weight or whatever weight they agree on for the fight, but he’s definitely going to be putting on a ton of weight overnight after the weigh-in, and it will be difficult for Cotto.

If Canelo doesn’t face Cotto, Rosado, Martirosyan or Monroe for his next fight, then I can’t see him fighting any of the dangerous middleweights or junior middleweights. The best fighters at 154 would likely beat Canelo. The best guys in the junior middleweight division right now are the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara. I don’t think Golden Boy will let Canelo anywhere near those guys because it would be too risky for him.



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