By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank confirmed a recent story on BoxingScene.com, that Manny Pacquiao’s upcoming training camp impacted Miguel Cotto’s decision to postpone his return to the ring from Dec. 13 to an undetermined date early in 2015.
“Freddie [Roach] is going to be in the Philippines [with Pacquiao] and Miguel decided he didn’t want to go to Asia to train,” Arum said following a news conference to promote the Pacquiao-Chris Algieri fight Nov. 22 in Macau, China. “So he’s going to postpone it until the first couple months of next year. Then he’ll have Freddie all to himself.”
Roach, also Cotto’s trainer, said Thursday he and Pacquiao will begin training camp for the Algieri fight next week in the Philippines.
Arum’s Top Rank Inc., with which Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) is working on a bout-by-bout basis, had reserved Madison Square Garden for Dec. 13 because that was the original date on which the Puerto Rican icon was expected to fight again. The 33-year-old Cotto could come back at 160 pounds, the weight at which he dominated Argentina’s Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) to win the WBC middleweight title June 7 at Madison Square Garden, or 154 pounds, his most natural fighting weight at this point in his 13-year pro career.
Arum added that he expects Cotto to fight “someone like” Ireland’s Andy Lee (33-2, 23 KOs) in his first fight of 2015, before pursuing a pay-per-view fight against Mexican star Canelo Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) later in the year.
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.