Miguel could be part of Wrestlemania!

"It's Cotto!" - Making a Wrestlemania Moment By Cliff Rold Love it or hate, there’s no denying that the spectacle of professional wrestling has long had its place in popular culture. Over the last 20-plus years, the WWE’s Wrestlemania has been the center of that universe. Boxing was there at its inaugural outing, with Muhammad Ali serving as an ‘enforcer’ referee for the ‘titanic’ tag match pitting the team of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff against the combined force that was Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. And, yeah, I’m one of the ones who always loved wrestling. Feel free to pity the fool. It should come as no surprise then that I have no problem with World Welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather’s planned participation in the genre. Good for him; given the opportunity, making reportedly excellent money to do something that looks purely like fun isn’t a bad thing. That doesn’t mean boxing fans have to follow the script; in fact, if they take a cue from the behavior of wrestling fans, and send the right cues to incite them as well, boxing fans could make Mayweather’s “Wrestlemania” moment less than the fun he’d hoped. Imagine the scene. Orlando, Florida… The 70,000 seat Citrus Bowl… Mayweather “versus” Paul Wight (The Big Show)… And a giant chant breaks out in the crowd to screw the whole scene up. It’s a simple chant too. “We Want Cotto” (clap-clap-clapclapclap) Loyal readers know that last week I proposed, in anticipation of Oscar De La Hoya-Stevie Forbes, a similar idea. Don’t worry loyal readers; you need not choose between “Go Stevie Go” and “We Want Cotto.” They’re the same really, meaning the same thing as pertains to the September potential for Mayweather Beats De La Hoya II. Is such a chant possible? It wouldn’t take much. Wrestling fans like to chant stuff. Having attended an event or two (including the original showdown between Mike Tyson and Stone Cold Steve Austin…Oh Hell Yeah!), I’ve seen chants that most in an audience couldn’t possibly understand spread like contagion. Wrestling crowds are an interactive bunch and no one likes to be left out. This Wrestlemania crowd is unique in its location, a real benefit for this call to arms. Florida has a large Latino population; boxing fans amongst Cubans and Cotto’s countryman from Puerto Rico abound, and certainly they’ll have their share of Wrestlemania tickets. They’ll be joined by enough individuals who know boxing to make this work. Everyone, even the bulk, of the anticipated Citrus Bowl crowd likely doesn’t know who Cotto is but it’s not a stretch to imagine that they could catch the fever. If “We Want Cotto” busts loose, by the end of the night you’ll have non-boxing fans watching at home on pay-per-view, and people in the crowd, wanting to know what “We Want Cotto” means. That’s a good thing for boxing. Like I wrote last week, chants alone won’t speed up the road to the most meaningful, and possibly best, current fight in the Welterweight division, Mayweather-Cotto. And be certain, this is about generating momentum for what could be a truly great, pick’em fight. Boxing’s hardcore base bears some responsibility in generating buzz for such a fight. Typically, they do a great job. This is a chance for the boxing fans in the Wrestlemania crowd to make a big, flashy, public impact on that front. We all live in the real world and common sense says there’s no way around Mayweather’s fall plans. However, if boxing fans want to see Mayweather-Cotto sooner rather than later after September’s checks are cashed, building a buzz outside their ranks never hurts. Hey Citrus Bowl, whatcha’ gonna’ do if “We Want Cotto” runs wild on you? I’d love to find out.