By Miguel Rivera
Former four division world champion Miguel Cotto has lashed out at the critics, including fellow fighters, who are calling for his retirement.
Cotto is scheduled to return on August 26th, at the StubHub Center in Carson, California when he faces Japanese contender Yoshihiro Kamegai for the vacant WBO junior middleweight championship.
Cotto has been out of the ring since November 2015, when he lost a twelve round decision to Canelo Alvarez at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. He was going to fight this past February against James Kirkland in a headline HBO Pay-Per-View bout from Texas, but the entire event got canceled when Kirkland withdrew with a fractured nose.
Cotto recently broke ties with Roc Nation Sports and hooked up with Golden Boy Promotions for his next fight.
The Puerto Rico veteran was planning to retire at the end of this year, but now he might continue even further - until at least 2018.
"I've heard fellow boxing colleagues say that I should retire, this or that," said Cotto to Carlos Gonzalez.
"I have never thought about their careers and retirement is a decision that I will make at the right time. I never interfere in the careers of others, and now fellow boxers come to meddle in mine which I do not like. I urge them to focus on their lives and careers. Here in Puerto Rico, it seems to be the order of the day to live the lives of others instead of oneself. I think that's already in the DNA of Puerto Ricans. I am very upset that this happens because I have never taken that audacity.
"I have been able to do things correctly for my family and if I continue here it is for my family. The fame and glory of boxing is something that I do not care about. Where I am interested in having a leading role is in my home. That's why I do not need any kind of recommendation from boxing colleagues. I'm here because I want to be and on the day I'm not, it's because I choose not to be."
"At the beginning of my career I wanted to be a great aficionado and then a world champion and I did it. I started with a great responsibility with children at age 17 and I focused on that step of having my family. What I have sought and climbed, I have done for them, to give them a great home. I have done as my parents did with me. As the great mother I have to go out of her way for her children, and like my father who gave us a rice ball when we needed it. I fell in love with boxing, It has been my job and there is some love. Also some incomplete things exist and that's why we are still here. What I have left is to see my children develop and enjoy the grandchildren."