Pacquiao-Cotto: Bobfather's Dream Comes True
What a weekend for the fight game. First, there was the insane Miguel Cotto vs. Josh Clottey fight in New York City, one visited by gruesome gashes, a multitude of fouls, a "body slam," and then punctuated with a highly controversial split decision in Cotto’s favor that left Clottey foaming at the mouth and calling for a rematch.
In other words, on Saturday night, professional wrestling returned to Madison Square Garden.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, another fighter who knows a little something about the wrestling biz, Floyd Mayweather Jr., sent shockwaves through the boxing world with a press release announcing that his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez, scheduled for July 18 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, would have to be postponed due to a rib injury that interrupted Floyd’s training. Although no makeup date has been announced yet, the word on the street is September 19.
And so, in the space of 24 hours, promoter Bob Arum’s nightmare, in the person of Mr. Cash Money Mayweather, recused himself from the Manny Pacquiao sweepstakes, and Arum’s ultimate dream fantasy with a lot of zeroes on the end of it and a cherry on top came to unlikely fruition. It now appears all but certain that Cotto and Pacquiao, both promoted by Arum’s Top Rank Inc., will fight later this year at the MGM Grand, with the date on the table right now being November 14.
Arum has been pushing for a Pac Man/Cotto match-up since the moment Pacquiao knocked out Ricky Hatton on May 2. I admit that I never thought it would happen. Cotto is too dangerous an opponent, and the money to be made from a Pacquiao/Mayweather too ridiculous, to take such a risk in the meantime.
And I honestly doubt that Cotto’s name would figure into this drama as anything but a negotiating ploy right now if Floyd were still going forward with the Marquez fight on July 18. Today, Arum is insisting in the press that Pacquiao, who was ringside at the Cotto/Clottey fight and received a huge ovation when introduced to the predominantly Puerto Rican crowd, asked Arum to make a date with Cotto soon after the final bell had rung on Saturday night, long before they knew anything about the Mayweather/Marquez postponement. Based on insider reports, I find that dubious at best. The word floating around the press after the Cotto/Clottey fight was that WBC welterweight champ Andre Berto was next in line for Cotto because Pacquiao was entirely fixated on fighting Floyd.
Obviously that changed with Sunday’s news from the Mayweather camp, and now, after a razor-thin margin of victory for Cotto over Clottey and an unexpected shocker from Money May on Sunday, Arum finds himself suddenly posed with every promoter’s dream situation – negotiating a mega-fight in which he represents both principals. All he has to worry about is striking a deal between the two camps for the bout’s catchweight. Pacquiao’s camp has been adamant that Manny would not fight either Cotto or Shane Mosley above 143 pounds. Meanwhile, Cotto has said that he wouldn’t consider anything below 145.
Something tells me that once the truck shows up carrying all the burlap sacks with dollar-signs on them, both sides will find some unforeseen wiggle room. I’m guessing it’ll get made at 144. And after that’s hammered out, Arum is sitting pretty. He came out today and said that he was going to try and have the entire deal signed and sealed by week’s end, and I bet he’s going to try his tail off. I’m not sure that I think fighting Miguel Cotto is the right move for Manny Pacquiao at this point, and, depending on the catch-weight, I’m not sure it’s such a great idea for Cotto either. There’s really only one person in the world for whom Pacquiao vs. Cotto is a no-brainer, and he’s known to all residents of Fistiana as The Bobfather.
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