When WBC junior middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez stopped game-but-outgunned former titleholder Kermit Cintron on November 26th in Mexico City, Mexico, he had big plans in mind afterwards.
Speaking with HBO's Max Kellerman, Alvarez mentioned that he was open for a clash with undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. and had hopes of landing the May 5th showcase.
Weeks went by and Alvarez’s name was in the mix for the Mayweather shot yet the fight ultimately went to Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto. The world’s WBA junior middleweight king and riding a 3-fight TKO streak since his November 2009 loss to Manny Pacquiao, the 31-year old Cotto is boxing’s third biggest draw at this point in his career and figures to be an interesting test.
But while Cotto looked solid in defeating his rival Antonio Margarito this past December, as well as Ricardo Mayorga last March and Yuri Foreman in June of 2010, several people believe that Cotto’s recent run was based on good matchmaking more than his true abilities as a prizefighter.
The beatings that Cotto took from Pacquiao, as well as Margarito in their first fight in July of 2008, were so severe that some insiders simply don’t look at him as the same fighter anymore.
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Count Alvarez in as one of those questioning Cotto’s value at this point.
“Mayweather has the power to decide [his opponents] and he can do it one day because right now he’s sitting on the throne,” Alvarez stated in a recent BoxingScene.com/NotiFight.com piece by Miguel Rivera and Victor Gonzalez. “He chose to fight Cotto, because he believes that he has less speed, moves a lot less and perhaps because he hasn’t been the same.”
And while Alvarez wasn’t able to track down Mayweather this time, he will be sharing the same ring with him at least as he is penciled in for a bout with former three-division champ Shane Mosley on the Mayweather-Cotto bill.
There are rumors that Alvarez could be facing the main event’s winner if successful on May 5th, all the more reason for him to take Mosley as serious as possible.
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Chris Robinson can be reached at Trimond@aol.com and www.Twitter.com/CRHarmony
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