Arum: Cotto vs Berto Tough To Make, Andre is Overpaid

By Lem Satterfield

WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto is set to return on November 27 against Mexico's Freddy Hernandez at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. If successful, Berto has mentioned a number of desired opponents for 2011. One of the opponents at the top of Berto's list is WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto.

Cotto's promoter, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, says a fight with Berto is very hard to make because of the economics involved. Berto receives a significant sum of money for every fight picked up by HBO. Arum believes Berto is being overpaid by the network for "ordinary fights." And because he's already being paid a very high amount per bout, Arum says it's very difficult to make a deal to fight Cotto because Berto is going to request an even larger sum of money.

"The problem with Berto is that he's a lovely kid and he's a good fighter, but he's a tulip, which means that his value has been set by what HBO is paying him for his fights. And, like the frenzy over tulips centuries ago in Holland, it's the same thing," Arum said.

"Berto shouldn't command anything like what HBO is paying him. Therefore, it makes it very, very difficult to make a big fight for Berto against somebody like a Miguel Cotto because the kid wants to be paid more than he would get paid for ordinary fights. Therefore, he would be vastly overpaid. So it's very difficult."

Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com. To read more from Lem Satterfield, go to AOL FanHouse by Clicking Here.