Could Miguel Cotto face Andy Lee?

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Could Miguel Cotto face Andy Lee?

By Dan Rafael | ESPN.com

Many of us would love to see middleweight champion Miguel Cotto have his next fight against titleholder Gennady Golovkin or junior middleweight star Canelo Alvarez.

Neither is going to happen, however. At least not next. I know none of us like that. Just accept it.

It seems doubtful a Golovkin fight will ever happen, and an Alvarez showdown -- for my money, the biggest fight in boxing outside of a Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao fight -- probably would not take place until the spring of 2015, if it can even be made.

But Cotto plans to fight again this year, which is a good thing. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says the date is Dec. 13 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which is essentially the Puerto Rican star’s home arena.

Arum has also said that he would like for Cotto’s next fight to be on regular HBO, as opposed to HBO PPV, mainly because his June fight with Sergio Martinez was a huge disappointment in terms of the pay-per-view sales. But even if Arum wants it on HBO, it is still likely to be on HBO PPV because I’m told Cotto wants to be on pay-per-view and that HBO likely won’t be able to afford the level of license fee to have him on the network.

So whom can Cotto fight that would A) make for a good fight; B) draw a big crowd at MSG (although not necessarily a big PPV audience) and C) be a fight in which the challenger has a reasonable chance to win but a fight in which Cotto will be the favorite so as not to put Cotto-Alvarez into too much jeopardy.

Hello, Andy Lee!

He is a possible opponent for Cotto.

Top Rank and Cotto’s camp still need to go over the particulars of what Cotto wants for the December fight. But Top Rank has Lee on its short list for Cotto and Lou DiBella, Lee’s promoter, said he and Arum have spoken and that the fight is a possibility.

Frankly, if Cotto isn’t fighting Golovkin or Alvarez, Cotto-Lee makes a lot of sense.

Remember, Lee, who has been on HBO a few times, was supposed to fight Golovkin in April on the network, but the fight was canceled after Golovkin’s father died. He is a legitimate contender and it probably would be a crowd-pleasing fight.

When the Golovkin fight was canceled, Lee wound up winning a small-time fight in Denmark on April 12 and then fought John Jackson on the June 7 Cotto-Martinez pay-per-view undercard, surviving a hard knockdown in the first round to rally for a highlight-reel fifth-round knockout victory. That means that Lee and Cotto are on the same schedule.

Lee is also Irish, and the Irish fans in New York have always supported their fighters by gobbling up tickets.

“Bob knows we won’t price ourselves out. He knows we want the fight and knows Andy sells a lot of tickets,” DiBella said. “I really believe you’ll have a similar crowd to what Cotto-Martinez drew, and Andy really wants the fight. Bob and I have worked together on fights before. I’m sure HBO would like Andy as an opponent, and I know the Garden loves the fight. Bob and I talked about it, and he knows we want the fight.

“Andy has wanted the opportunity to fight a legend. If you’re a fighter and you don’t want to fight a future Hall of Famer and the middleweight champion of the world, you’re not a real fighter. Andy Lee is a real fighter. It’s a tremendous fight. Say what you want, but Andy can crack and he showed he can overcome adversity against Jackson.”

Arum and DiBella have made plenty of fights together over the years, including some that were more complicated than a Cotto-Lee match would be, such as the Martinez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. pay-per-view in 2012.

“All my dealing with Top Rank have been good. We have always worked well together, and when there is a fight that we have tried to make, there’s never been a fight we couldn’t get done,” DiBella said. “If Bob and Cotto want to make this deal, we’ll make it very easily. We could do it in one phone call.”

Lee (33-2, 23 KOs) challenged then-titleholder Chavez for his world title in June 2012 and was stopped in the seventh round of a competitive fight. Lee, a 30-year-old southpaw, has won five fights in a row since.

By stopping Martinez in the 10th round, Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs), 33, became the first Puerto Rican boxer to win world titles in four weight classes, further enhancing his Hall of Fame credentials.

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...-face-andy-lee

Dipper Brown wrote:The three times he's fought for a world strap he's come up short. Pretty conclusive proof that he isn't at that top level. Don't see any reason why that would change against Cotto, I think he'd be on the end of a beating.

There's a world of difference between fighting genuine middleweights like Martinez who he fought well against, Golovkin who hits infinitely harder than Cotto and Sturm whom many think he deserved to beat. Then compare that to a blown up Welterweight who hasn't won a world title against a guy without a busted knee for years who struggled past Clottey and was blown away by a former flyweight in Pacquiao.

There comes a point when weight and size overcome a talent differential.

Well if any of the British lads get a fight eith Cotto they could get a strap and Murray should beat Cotto comfortably

Seriously who has Cotto beat above 147?

he is 5'7, has a lot of miles on the clock and his face gets busted up in every fight

Ignoring the ghost of Sergio he has wins of journeyman dzinzuruk, past it Margarito, 40 year old mayorga and one legged foreman as well as a close but clear loss to natural welter Floyd an clearly beaten and manhandled by Trout

He's living off of busting up Mayweathers face a little bit, he's not beaten anybody half decent unless they've been woefully out of shape.

Living off busting up Mayweathers face a bit. Lol! Clueless.

Hes just wiped out the number ranked middleweight and supposed top "pound for pound" fighter in a fight he was expected to be thumped in. That's where his press is coming from.

You really do know the square root of zero catchy, stick to your boxrec jibes that's more your sort of inane pointless level.

Yeah Cottos living off that Mayweather fight from years back! That's all that get talks about! What a pile of crap even by your low standards. Its entirely to do with Cottos last fight that has put him back on the map. He was considered washed up before it.

A fight very few give him any credit for because of the condition of Martinez's knee, bravo a fight you called a joke has made Cotto a superstar again.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:He's living off of busting up Mayweathers face a little bit, he's not beaten anybody half decent unless they've been woefully out of shape.

Yeah he should really drop the four weight world champion and go with 'I made Floyd bleed his own blood', as a claim to fame.

Pointless arguing this one with you, I'll just leave it. When it comes to Cotto, you're more one eyed than Margarito.   

Yes that fight has made him a superstar again. Winning THE middleweight title. Nothing to do with living off his Mayweather fight.

I can see the headlines when when he fights Alvarez now. "Man who busted up Mayweathers face a little" v "Man who didn't bust up Mayweathers face at all"

Dipper Brown wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:He's living off of busting up Mayweathers face a little bit, he's not beaten anybody half decent unless they've been woefully out of shape.

Yeah he should really drop the four weight world champion and go with 'I made Floyd bleed his own blood', as a claim to fame.

Pointless arguing this one with you, I'll just leave it. When it comes to Cotto, you're  more one eyed than Margarito.   

Sure nobody even knows hes a four weight world champion and the current middleweight champion. They only remember him for the nosebleed he gave Mayweather years ago!

After watching McEwan outbox Lee for large periods of their fight I think Cotto could easily do the same even with a bit of a size difference. Says more about how Lee is fringe top ten in a rubbish division than how good Cotto is really. I know Chavez weighs loads on fight night but he's not a big puncher and a fair few light middleweights have gone the distance with him that Lee couldn't manage.

Lee hasn't ever shown much of anything to say he could compete consistently at world level. Well that's not totally true he scored a peach of a KO last time although he was totally unimpressive outside of that. Even at a level below world championship he looks like he could have his work cut out. Pretty ordinary. It might be that every dog has his day and Lee is just in the right place at the right time but if Cotto can reproduce his performance against Martinez, regardless that Martinez was shot, then that would be plenty to beat Lee from what I have seen.

Yeah that's the way I see it too.

With an Alvarez fight on the horizon you would imagine Cotto would just need to avoid being knocked out or embarrassed to get the win in any event.

Cotto gets credit for winning the middleweight title because of his size but I can't give him credit for who he beat even if it doesn't make sense. Absolute cherry pick. One of my favourite boxers but he isn't big enough or good enough to beat a real middleweight contender. I'm not saying Lee or Macklin are but I just can't see him beating them, especially Macklin. After following his career from light welter, I don't think his chin is good enough to last against a middle. Did against Martinez but that wasn't Martinez in there and that's the only reason the fight happened.

You have it back the front. The fight happened because Martinez wanted to avoid his main rival and pick on a smaller fighter who he thought was even more past it than he was. It backfired. Martinez was the handy a favourite with the size advantage.

TopHat24/7 wrote:

Strongback wrote:

Derbymanc wrote: 

Strongback wrote:

Adam D wrote:Is this not the type of mismatch that Lucifer Hearn gets criticised for?

No.

  

Brian Rose was sent out to New York to take a beating so Eddie could go on a jolly and schmooze with HBO.

Read: Brian Rose was gifted a career-high payday and a world title shot he arguably didn't earn/deserve but I can't deal with it because I have massive daddy-issues.

Rose got $100,000. Ryder got more than that for fighting Billy Joe Saunders.