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Last Saturday rising junior welterweight superstar Miguel Cotto enjoyed a spot of target practice against the faded force of Randell Bailey, taking out the ex-champion in six one-sided rounds on the Klitschko v Williams card at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. It looked a mismatch on paper and, aside from a few seconds in the first round, it was exactly that in reality.
If we are honest it was a calling card, showcase, type of outing; a 'look at what I can do' open sparring session. But now we know what the unbeaten Puerto Rican can do his promoter, Bob Arum, says the 24-year-old WBO title-holder will be moved significantly up in class - with division ruler Kostya Tszyu being the No.1 target.
"You're going to see Miguel Cotto in some very significant fights immediately in 2005," the Top Rank boss said. "We feel he's serviced his apprenticeship and it's now time for the marquee names and prove that Miguel Cotto is the best junior welterweight in the world. I wouldn't hesitate putting him in with the biggest names right now, in his next fight, and that includes Kostya Tszyu, Arturo Gatti, Floyd Mayweather, Ricky Hatton and whoever else."
Arum once again said he'd be willing to take Cotto to, say, Australia or Russia to face Russian-born Aussie Tszyu or Manchester, England, to face fellow young gun Ricky Hatton.
Arum said: "Absolutely we will travel for the big fights. A ring is the same now matter where it is set up. It's ludicrous that these fighters won't go to the other guy's hometown. As long as you have neutral officials what difference does it make? Some of my best fighters won their belts abroad - Marvelous Marvin Hagler beat Alan Minter in England. Sure, we had to duck bottles after the fight but Marvin got the title."
Cotto can be a little too intense and unemotional for a reporter's liking but, Arum said, that is changing. "He takes this seriously and, also, he's worried that his English isn't quite good enough yet. I think he speaks great English but once he feels fully comfortable he'll be giving as many interviews as reporters want. He's a lovely kid."
Arum has always believed Cotto could because as big a star as countryman Felix Trinidad, despite the fact that Cotto lacks his hero's one-punch power. That is why he aggressively sought Cotto's signature following the Sydney 2000 Olympics and left other promoters to fall over themselves trying to woo the likes of US Olympians like Ricardo Williams and Jeff Lacy.
Arum explained: "Well, Lacy is a nice kid and we could have gone for him because he has a nice CV; we didn't want to go for Williams because we didn't like the kind of person he was. We just thought that Cotto was more of our sort of athlete, we liked the fact that he was Hispanic because we have a history of showcasing those types of fighters, we thought that Puerto Rico is a hotbed of interest and once we met Cotto we knew we'd gone for the right guy.
"We liked him immediately. We went down there and he was young but already mature, he was married, he had kids and a good family around him. We just knew that part of his life was solid and then we saw him training day after day in the gym training like a madman and we just knew he was right for us to take a chance on
"We look for kids with good character traits, a family person, someone who doesn't go out drinking, messing about with lots of women because those are the types of guy you can't control. If a guy is a drinker and doesn't pay attention to business and all that the chances are along the way he'll fall down and not pan out right.
"Sometimes you make determinations of potential and what the future may hold and you turn out to be wrong, sometime you turn out to be right and with Cotto we feel we've hit the bull's-eye. We feel we've got a major, major attraction here we can build up and to do that you need A list match-ups. Cotto is now ready for those match-ups"
Interestingly, Arum believes these "A List" fights need not be title bouts.
"Titles don't mean anything anymore," the promoter said. "Fan just don't care. Fans look for the matches now, who is fighting who. The title is nothing to do with it. There's so many titles they've all become meaningless. For the last few years the fans just don't care."
How come Cotto has the WBO strap, then?
"Oh, on the way up titles are important," explained the man whose phrase 'Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth' will live on for eternity. "You gotta have titles to have establish a star but once they are established the fighters doesn't need a title."
If we are honest it was a calling card, showcase, type of outing; a 'look at what I can do' open sparring session. But now we know what the unbeaten Puerto Rican can do his promoter, Bob Arum, says the 24-year-old WBO title-holder will be moved significantly up in class - with division ruler Kostya Tszyu being the No.1 target.
"You're going to see Miguel Cotto in some very significant fights immediately in 2005," the Top Rank boss said. "We feel he's serviced his apprenticeship and it's now time for the marquee names and prove that Miguel Cotto is the best junior welterweight in the world. I wouldn't hesitate putting him in with the biggest names right now, in his next fight, and that includes Kostya Tszyu, Arturo Gatti, Floyd Mayweather, Ricky Hatton and whoever else."
Arum once again said he'd be willing to take Cotto to, say, Australia or Russia to face Russian-born Aussie Tszyu or Manchester, England, to face fellow young gun Ricky Hatton.
Arum said: "Absolutely we will travel for the big fights. A ring is the same now matter where it is set up. It's ludicrous that these fighters won't go to the other guy's hometown. As long as you have neutral officials what difference does it make? Some of my best fighters won their belts abroad - Marvelous Marvin Hagler beat Alan Minter in England. Sure, we had to duck bottles after the fight but Marvin got the title."
Cotto can be a little too intense and unemotional for a reporter's liking but, Arum said, that is changing. "He takes this seriously and, also, he's worried that his English isn't quite good enough yet. I think he speaks great English but once he feels fully comfortable he'll be giving as many interviews as reporters want. He's a lovely kid."
Arum has always believed Cotto could because as big a star as countryman Felix Trinidad, despite the fact that Cotto lacks his hero's one-punch power. That is why he aggressively sought Cotto's signature following the Sydney 2000 Olympics and left other promoters to fall over themselves trying to woo the likes of US Olympians like Ricardo Williams and Jeff Lacy.
Arum explained: "Well, Lacy is a nice kid and we could have gone for him because he has a nice CV; we didn't want to go for Williams because we didn't like the kind of person he was. We just thought that Cotto was more of our sort of athlete, we liked the fact that he was Hispanic because we have a history of showcasing those types of fighters, we thought that Puerto Rico is a hotbed of interest and once we met Cotto we knew we'd gone for the right guy.
"We liked him immediately. We went down there and he was young but already mature, he was married, he had kids and a good family around him. We just knew that part of his life was solid and then we saw him training day after day in the gym training like a madman and we just knew he was right for us to take a chance on
"We look for kids with good character traits, a family person, someone who doesn't go out drinking, messing about with lots of women because those are the types of guy you can't control. If a guy is a drinker and doesn't pay attention to business and all that the chances are along the way he'll fall down and not pan out right.
"Sometimes you make determinations of potential and what the future may hold and you turn out to be wrong, sometime you turn out to be right and with Cotto we feel we've hit the bull's-eye. We feel we've got a major, major attraction here we can build up and to do that you need A list match-ups. Cotto is now ready for those match-ups"
Interestingly, Arum believes these "A List" fights need not be title bouts.
"Titles don't mean anything anymore," the promoter said. "Fan just don't care. Fans look for the matches now, who is fighting who. The title is nothing to do with it. There's so many titles they've all become meaningless. For the last few years the fans just don't care."
How come Cotto has the WBO strap, then?
"Oh, on the way up titles are important," explained the man whose phrase 'Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth' will live on for eternity. "You gotta have titles to have establish a star but once they are established the fighters doesn't need a title."
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