Cotto-Canelo A No Go

So sorry fight fans, to be the bearer of such news. You aren’t going to see a Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez clash, not on May 2, anyway.

Seemingly eternal negotiations for that A grade Puerto Rican vs. Mexican PPV scrap stretched on, and finally came to a halt, with no fruition. On Saturday early afternoon, word went out, from Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya, that the bout was not a go, and the back and forth would cease.

Cotto advisor Gaby Penagaricano checked in with TSS and delivered the news. “We did not reach an agreement,” he told me. “Spoke to Oscar last night, and he said he needed to move on. We have no problem with that and respect it.”

A most unscientific eye poll on Twitter made it look to me like people were blaming Cotto for the tussle not being hashed out. Fair, or unfair? “There in no one to blame,” Penagaricano said. “Neither side. You either can make a deal or you can’t. We were not able to. We were willing to continue the conversations, but if Oscar needed to move for whatever reason, fine no problem. We do not have the timing issues that Oscar/Canelo appears to have.”

“Canelo is obviously fighting on May 2nd, he’s firm on that,” De La Hoya told Boxing Scene. “The fight he wanted is Cotto, because that’s a fan friendly fight and he wants it for the fans. All of our terms are dealt with. We agreed to everything. Canelo bent over backwards to try to make this fight. There is a deadline and that deadline has passed. Since now that they didn’t take the offer, and a very handsome offer – we therefore – Canelo and Golden Boy – we’re going to move on. Canelo gave me a deadline of last night and that deadline passed.”

Penagaricano wanted to make sure he made this quite clear: “Miguel did not ‘pass’ on the fight. We simply were not able to make a deal,” he said.

I pressed, and asked if that means now a Mayweather-Cotto sequel is now in the works, or a possibility. But our connection was lost…

Oscar has been saying for the last couple weeks that if Cotto-Canelo falls apart, the Mexican still wants to glove up May 2. But as it seems that we are close-ish to seeing a Manny-Money fight that night–I know, I know, I am assuming nothing here, as history is our best guide for the future–it would seem an illogical scenario to have Canelo also fighting that evening, and thus having the HBO crew dealing with a Super Fight, and the HBO re-debut of the red-headed hitter would seem to preclude that scenario.

Other options might include…what?….Gennady Golovkin is fighting next month, Jermain Taylor is booked to fight Sergio Mora, and Andy Lee has a couple potential options which don’t include Cotto. Now, Cotto has been working with Top Rank, but is a free agent. If he were to bolt, to maybe an Al Haymon, that could open up other possibilities, people like Danny Jacobs or Peter Quillin maybe. Then again, Cotto has been a longtime partner of HBO, who had a bitter split with Haymon. David Lemieux burst on the scene with a win against Gabriel Rosado in December, so maybe he gets tapped. He just hooked on with Golden Boy, for the record.

As for Canelo, at 154, he’s already waltzed with Floyd. Possibles might include IBF champ K9 Bundrage or WBO titlist Demetrius Andrade. There seems to be a Twitter push to see the Mexican fight a bombs-away face-off with James Kirkland, who fights intermittently. K9 told me he’d like to fight Cotto, Canelo, Tim Bradley or Paulie Malignaggi, any of the above.

You all have ideas about what could and should be next for Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) and Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs)? Weigh in, in our Forum!

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