By Rick Reeno
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer was a happy man on Friday. Former three division world champion Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30KOs) announced that he finalized a deal to challenge undefeated WBA "regular" junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (25-0, 14KOs) on December 1st at New York's Madison Square Garden. It will be Cotto's first fight since the twelve round decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Several weeks ago, Schaefer advised BoxingScene that Golden Boy would be working with Cotto on his next fight. Cotto was promoted by Top Rank for basically his entire career. His Top Rank contract expired on December 31, 2011. Cotto became a free agent and fought Mayweather on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Golden Boy co-promoted that event with Cotto Promotions and Mayweather Promotions.
Golden Boy co-promoted Mayweather's last six fights, and Schaefer is hoping to establish a similar working relationship with Cotto for his future ring appearances. Golden Boy and Cotto Promotions have already been working side by side with co-promotions in Puerto Rico.
"I am very happy to be working with Miguel and Miguel Cotto Promotions again. We had a great first experience [during the Mayweather fight]. Our teams work very well together. As you know, we do our events together in Puerto Rico as well. We are co-promoting fighters together. We really enjoy the relationship that we have with Miguel. We are very happy that he decided to work with us again in what will be a very meaningful and a very big fight," Schaefer told BoxingScene.com.
"In typical Miguel Cotto fashion, he is not going to go with a tune-up. He is going for a world title against an undefeated fighter with Austin Trout. It just goes to show what Miguel is about. It's going to be a big night in New York on December 1st. I am very, very excited about it."
The final chip remaining is the network. No decision has been made regarding which network, HBO or Showtime, is going to carry the fight. A decision should be made in the coming weeks.
"We are having conversations. We will be discussing [this] a little bit more internally and then we are going to make a decision on which way we are going to go," Schaefer said.
Trout is managed by the very influential Al Haymon and promoted by Greg Cohen.
