By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – A Miguel Cotto-Canleo Alvarez showdown is much more likely to occur next, but trainer Freddie Roach is confident Cotto could upset Floyd Mayweather Jr. if a Cotto-Mayweather rematch is made.
“It’s a tough fight, but I do think Miguel’s big enough and strong enough to beat him,” Roach said early Sunday morning during the Cotto-Daniel Geale post-fight press conference at Barclays Center. “We’d have to fight a perfect fight, but I think we’re very capable of doing that.”
Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs) clearly out-boxed Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) in their first fight on his way to a unanimous decision win. Though Cotto made him uncomfortable at times, Mayweather won their junior middleweight fight in May 2012 by large margins on all three scorecards (118-110, 117-111, 117-111).
Cotto also lost his following fight decisively to southpaw Austin Trout in December 2012. But Roach helped rejuvenate Cotto after he suffered back-to-back defeats to Mayweather and Trout. The Puerto Rican star has won each of the three fights for which Roach has trained him in dominant fashion.
Delvin Rodriguez (28-7-4, 16 KOs) and Daniel Geale (31-4, 16 KOs) were big underdogs before Cotto stopped them and former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) had a knee injury that hindered him during his technical knockout loss to Cotto a year ago. Nevertheless, Cotto’s resurgence has generated interest in a Mayweather rematch, as well as fights against Mexico’s Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) and Kazakh knockout artist Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs).
When asked specifically early Sunday morning about boxing Mayweather again, Cotto said, “I’ve been here always looking for the big names if there’s [an] opportunity for my career. We’re just going to sit and talk about what’s best for us as a team.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.