By Michael Collins: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) took the opportunity to speak on the rumors about him having been chosen to fight WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao next by saying he hasn’t decided on his next fight, according to his twitter account.
Cotto said this on his twitter about a potential Pacquiao fight: “Do not pay attention to rumors. I have not made any decision yet nor reached any deal regarding my next fight. At the appropriate time I will be directly announcing my next fight. I am discussing and analyzing options with my team.”
This is kind of a stunner, as the news that has been circulating around the internet about Cotto has him fighting Pacquiao on June 9th at either the Thomas & Mack Center or the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Monday is when Cotto and Pacquiao were supposedly going to be finalizing their deal, according to RingTV.
Pacquiao is considering a fight with Cotto as well as Lamont Peterson, Timothy Bradley, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao prefers to fight Mayweather next but because of Mayweather’s inflexibility in terms of being able to fight beyond May 5th, as well as him wanting a bigger cut of the revenue, it’s making a fight between him and Pacquiao a long shot in comparison to the other candidates that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has selected for him to pick out.
Arum is having a 40,000 seat arena built on the Las Vegas strip, but it won’t be finished until late May and it’s not going to be necessary for anyone but Mayweather-Pacquiao. Mayweather is the only one that can bring in huge traffic to fill a large arena like 40,000 seat arena.
One problem that may prevent Pacquiao from getting a fight against Cotto is the weight for the fight. Pacquiao has been saying that he won’t fight above 147lbs because it’s too hard on his body. That means that Cotto, who fights at 154, would have to be the one to move down in weight to fight at 147 and he’s not interested in doing that.