By Miguel Rivera
When Puerto Rican star Miguel Cotto (38-3, 31KOs) turned down a $10 million dollar offer to face Saul "Canelo" Alvarez on March 8th, he was rolling the dice on two-fight gamble in 2014.
Cotto passed on Canelo (42-1-1, 30KOs) for a chance to face WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 26KOs) on June 7th at New York's Madison Square Garden. Canelo will instead face Alfredo Angulo on the March date.
"After June we have six months, and at any time in those six months we can stage a fight with Canelo," Cotto told Alfredo Berrios.
If Cotto would have lost to Canelo, then a Martinez fight would be impossible to make. But if Cotto loses to Martinez, he can still face Canelo in the fall. And if he beats Martinez, then he might be worth more than $10 million or even become a lucrative rematch opponent for Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the fall.
Of course, if Canelo loses to a very live underdog in Angulo, then we may not get a Cotto fight for some time.