Miguel Cotto surprises in signing multi-fight deal with Golden Boy

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto surprised a lot of boxing fans on Wednesday in inking a multi-fight deal with Golden Boy Promotions on Wednesday that will keep the 36-year old fighter in action beyond his next fight against Yoshihiro Kamegai (27-3-2, 24 KOs) on August 26. It was thought that the 36-year-old Cotto would be retiring from boxing at the end of the year after a possible rematch with Saul Canelo Alvarez, but new contract with Golden Boy changes that.

Unless Cotto opts to pull out of the contract before it’s completed, we could see him fighting at least through the first half of 2018. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends badly for Cotto with him losing all 3 fights with Golden Boy. Cotto might win against Kamegai. It’s hard to tell, because he’s facing a big puncher in the Japanese knockout artist. The inactivity for Cotto isn’t going to help him in this fight.

The deal with Cotto could be a real positive with Golden Boy if the rematch between Cotto and Canelo brings in a lot of PPV buys. Besides the Cotto-Canelo fight, there’s also talk of Cotto facing former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux in early 2018. Golden Boy co-promotes Lemieux. Having him fight Cotto on HBO PPV would be a fairly significant fight, especially if Cotto beats Canelo in December. Cotto gave Canelo a lot of problems in their fight in November of 2015 on HBO PPV.

Canelo won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was competitive. Cotto had a chance to win if he hadn’t gotten away from his game plan by trying to slug with the heavier and stronger Canelo. When Cotto was boxing Canelo, he was controlling the fight. Cotto seemed to get drawn into a brawl with Canelo afte taking some big shots that got the fans excited about at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cotto isn’t saying which fights he’ll be taking beyond his next one against the 34-year-old Kamagai, which will be televised on HBO World Championship Boxing on August 26 at 9:45 p.m. ET/6:45 p.m. PT. Cotto-Kamagai will be fighting for the vacant World Boxing Organization 154 pound title that was recently given up by Canelo Alvarez after he moved up in weight to face Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earlier this month on May 6.
In addition to signing Cotto to a multi-fight contract, Golden Boy will be working with Miguel Cotto Promotions to help boxing.

With Cotto fighting for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title against Kamegai, it begs the question what’s the purpose of fighting for that belt? If Cotto is going to turn around and face Canelo in December and then Lemieux after that, having the WBO 154 pound title would seem like a meaningless trinket. Canelo and Lemieux are too big to melt down to 154 to fight Cotto. Besides that, there’s no upside in them fighting Cotto for the WBO junior middleweight title.

It’s not big enough deal for them to want to drain down in weight just so that they can pick up the WBO strap. There’s no positive for Lemieux or Canelo to fight for WBO title against Cotto. At the same time, it’s not worthwhile for Cotto to actually defend the WBO title because there are no big names in the 154lb division now for him to fight. For Cotto to take advantage of his 3-fight contract with Golden Boy Promotions, he needs to fight only the more popular fighters like Canelo, Lemieux and dare I say Gennady Golovkin.

I don’t think for a second that Cotto is going to get anywhere near Golovkin unless he’s brought down to earth by Canelo in their fight on September 16. Even then, I see Golovkin as the equivalent of the third rail for Cotto. He’s not going to want to come in contact with Golovkin because it’s a bad match-up for him. I think it’s a really bad match-up for Canelo as well, but the boxing world has put so much pressure on him to take that fight that he’s no longer able to stall it from happening. I do think Canelo and Golden Boy have been stalling in making the GGG fight due to him being so dangerous, and Canelo being flawed.

The 5’9” Kamegai has the potential to sidetrack Cotto’s plans for a big money rematch with Canelo in December. If Kamegai can pull off a big upset by beating the 36-year-old Cotto on August 26, it’s going to make it hard for Golden Boy to put Cotto and Canelo back in together in December. They’ll probably still make the Canelo-Cotto fight even under those circumstances, but it would look bad in the eyes of the hardcore boxing fans, who would be aware, of course, of Cotto’s loss to Kamegai. The rematch between Canelo and Cotto won’t do nearly as well under that scenario.

I can’t see Cotto burning up one of his last 3 remaining fights facing Kamegai twice in a row. It’s bad enough that Cotto is facing Kamegai at all, period, because he’s not a popular fighter, and he was recently beaten by Alfonso Gomez and Robert Guerrero. Those are not world beaters in boxing.

”When I first heard that this fight had been made and that I would face Cotto, I thought to myself, ‘YES!’” said Kamegai.

That comment from Kamegai shows you how hungry this fighter is. This is going to be Kamegai’s Super Bowl in facing Cotto. Kamegai is going to be fighting well above his normal game when he gets inside the ring with Cotto, and he’s the younger, taller, and the more active fighter of the two. An upset is not beyond the possibility. I don’t even know if you could call it an upset if Kamegai beats Cotto. I think it would be the end result of what happens when you’re 36, and you’ve not fought in 2 years. Cotto hasn’t been active, he’s small, and he’s fighting a bigger guy that is still a full time fighter.

At this point in Cotto’s career, he’s a part time fighter. It’s hard to know what to expect from Cotto. He might be too rusty, small and old for him to beat Kamegai. That would be saddest news for Golden Boy if Cotto is over-the-hill, because they just signed him to a multi-fight contract. Like I said, I think Golden Boy will stick Cotto in with Canelo even with him coming off of a loss to Kamegai, but the buy rate for the fight under those conditions will likely be far less than what they would have been if Cotto had beaten Kamegai.

“As one of the most entertaining junior middleweight contenders in the division today, Kamegai has been involved in some of the most memorable battles against former title holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero and back to back brawls with Jesus Soto Karass,” said Oscar De L Hoya.

Kamegai lost to Guerrero in 2014. That was a fight in which Guerrero purposefully slugged it out with Kamegai because he wanted to make it exciting for the boxing public. That was a crazy thing for Guerrero to do because he fought Kamegai’s fight and took a lot of punishment in the process of winning a 12 round unanimous decision.