Bob Arum Predicts Cotto vs Pacquiao Will Be a War
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum predicts the showdown between pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao and Puerto Rico’s WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on November 14 will be “a war, an absolute war.”
Arum spoke to BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports after what he said was a “really and truly wonderful holiday. Every stop we enjoyed ourselves “ in Israel and Italy in particular and he was re-charged and ready to go to work promoting some of the most exciting cards in boxing.
Arum who told us before he left on a one-month vacation that he was confident Pacquiao would agree to fight Cotto said this will be “a great fight, a great, great fight because of their styles.”
Arum revealed that immediately after Cotto beat Joshua Clottey to win the title, Pacquiao said he wanted to fight Cotto and “even Freddie (Roach) wanted that fight."
At the same time Arum said he “never rose to the bait” to engage Shane Mosley who kept virtually begging for a fight with Pacquiao saying “I always praised Mosley and said if he doesn’t get this fight he’ll get the next fight so really they had nothing to fire back.”
But Arum declined to look ahead beyond the fight with Cotto indicating that besides being a great fight it could be close, since Pacquiao had agreed to allow the pride of Puerto Rico to come in at 145 pounds instead of 143 pounds which Team Pacquiao initially wanted.
The normal media tour which have always done wonders in helping promote Pacquiao fights will kickoff after Labor Day.
While Pacquiao will be coming off a spectacular 2nd round knockout of Britain’s IBO light welterweight champion Ricky “Hitman” Hatton last May 2 when Hatton was effectively separated from his senses by a thundering, looping left hook, Cotto had a hard time before winning a split decision over Ghana’s Joshua Clottey at a jam-packed Madison Square Garden in New York where Cotto is a huge favorite.
In agreeing to fight Pacquiao, the Puerto Rican will benefit from his biggest payday and in exchange for that the three-time world champion agreed to extend his contract with Arum for another two years, seemingly spurning Oscar De La Hoya’s efforts to sign him up after his Top Rank contract ends this year.
The reports indicated that Golden Boy Promotions attempted to exploit Cotto’s reported unhappiness over Arum’s support for Antonio Margarito who was found to have used plaster-of-Paris to give him an illegal advantage in a fight in which he beat a bloodied Cotto.
