High praise for Manny Pacquiao; none for Miguel Cotto

High praise for Manny Pacquiao; none for Miguel Cotto July 28, 6:53 PM Knowing my history, you would never believe I would agree with Bob Arum on anything. I have walked on the other side of the street from him for years. But a weird "Axis of Evil" exists between Arum, WBO president Francisco "Paco" Valcarcel and myself. The three of us believe WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto should defend his title against Manny Pacquiao and should pay the sanctioning fee he is responsible for when he accepted his title. This not a novel idea. It's standard operating procedure. Note: A usually accurate but unconfirmed source tells me that this has all been resolved now and Cotto will defend the WBO title and the sanctioning fee will be paid by someone other than Cotto or Team Cotto and afterwords everyone will go to a camp fire and sing "Kumbayah." This is about business. Honor, national pride, glory and all are nice, but not the point. Read the interviews with Arum and Valcarcel. They are not concerned either way. These are two secure, confident men that know their businesses. Arum can either have "WBO Title" splashed across posters, or he can't. Valcarcel either gets his sanctioning fee from Cotto, or he strips him of the title. Basically, while an incovenience and a waste of their time. neither Arum nor Valcarcel care if Cotto is there or not. In fact, just a couple of days ago the world thought this was a good deal for Cotto at $400,000! This is really Pacquiao's fight anyway. Cotto is the opponent. Publicly Arum and Valcarcel want to show Cotto the respect a world champion and national hero deserves and $5 million large goes a long way toward that. But Cotto has made a non-issue very difficult, and nobody wants to be negative publicly until it's a virtual lost cause. The three other major sanctioning groups are pretty much in agreement with Valcarcel. If a fighter is in a situation where he is champion and is defending his title(s) it is understood by written agreement or otherwise that the fighter, promoter and sanctioning body will do whatever is necessary to bring prestige to the event. What possible reason does Cotto have to believe he can arbitrarily chose to make the maximum amount of dollars with no risk? Wouldn't Valcarcel be better off giving a belt to another candidate more worthy than Cotto? I mean at least the WBO would get paid. Name a champion who doesn't want to defend his title? There are situations where a champion makes a non-title defense and pays a negotiated fee. He does this because he understands he can carry the belt into the ring and press conferences and he can call himself the world champion and hold his head high. That is what it is all about. Valcarcel will certainly take the high road like a gentleman and say Cotto can decide not to defend the title but can drape the belt around him but he has to pay the sanctioning fee. It's like paying rent even if you're on summer vacation. You just have to do it. Arum won't like it but what choice does he have? He's out front going along with a non-title fight but won't be the bad guy if an argument between Cotto and Valcarcel boils over. Valcarcel says the amount owed by Cotto to the WBO is $150,000. That's is three cents on the dollar of what Cotto is supposed to make for this fight. It's probable someone other than Cotto pays his $150,000 fee and Arum would to save the show I guess. But Cotto should be ashamed of himself if he even takes personal responsibility. While Arum could have "calibrated" his words differently, don't blame him. This is all Cotto's doing. And remember, this was a vacant title. Cotto was coming off a loss and the WBO and Arum miraculously gave him a vacant title for beating Michael Jennings. Vacant is even worse than interim in this case! That's how low Cotto has sunk here. I remember 20 years ago when a friend helped me out of a jam and when I for some reason didn't return the favor when I could have, well let's just say I feel bad I was obviously selfish to this day and I lost the friend forever. This is the predicament Cotto is in. Look what Arum and Valcarcel have done for him. Cotto's "people" can't say they chose not to discuss this through the media because they drew first blood. They accepted the best offer. Did they believe the subject wasn't going to come up? That if they ignore it, it would go away? If Cotto were to win November 14, the best he could ever hope for is to rematch Pacquiao, so why pull this nonsense? I'm on record as saying both the Margarito and Clottey fights have taken it all out of him and he is prematurely shot at age 28. I think just on instinct he can be in the fight for five rounds but than it is all Pacquiao. Arum and Valcarcel took the high road. Manny Pacquiao smartly stayed out of it and in my opinion deserves the highest marks of praise. I want to be on the other side of the street anyway, Author: Matt Stolow http://www.examiner.com/x-11372-Dallas-Boxing-Examiner~y2009m7d28-High-praise-for-Manny-Pacquiao-none-for-Miguel-Cotto