By Ben Jacobs

BoxingScene today caught up with Promoter/Advisor Sampson Lewkowicz by telephone as he was entering the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas to meet with HBO executives.
Sampson revealed that negotiations for a blockbuster fight between Sergio Martínez and Miguel Cotto are at an advanced stage.

“Team Martínez is focused on this fight, he would love to fight Cotto, it’s good for the fans and for boxing,” he said.

“It could be at the New York Giants football stadium [MetLife] in New Jersey, it would be an historical event that would be part of the continuation from Argentina where there were 50,000 fans cheering for Sergio.  It would be in June on the weekend of the Puerto Rican parade.

“It will take a few weeks to finalize all the details, but Lou DiBella will start to work most likely in the next week or so on the contracts.  It will be, you know, between 50 and 60 pages of contracts.  It will take long but everybody’s on board.”

Cotto is coming off an impressive stoppage win over Delvin Rodríguez in Orlando last Saturday.  As such, the time now appears right for the two men to square off.

“Cotto won his fight and he believes he can beat Martínez, Martínez believes he can beat Cotto, so it’s a 50/50. 

“Martínez feels very insulted that Cotto didn’t show him any respect when they met at the ESPN Deportes studios in Mexico City.  Martínez has respect for every champion and he feels Cotto showed no respect.  They’ve never had a conversation but you will see an aggressive Martínez at the press conference, he dislikes him a lot.”

Lewkowicz also ruled out any lingering possibility that may have existed for a rematch between Martínez and Julio César Chávez Jr.

“I believe very strongly that I’ll be an astronaut before Chávez Jr makes 160lbs again.  There’s nothing to discuss as far as a rematch is concerned,” he affirmed.

Another of Sampson’s fighters, Gabriel Campillo, was recently stopped by Andrzej Fonfara despite appearing to be ahead in the fight on the scorecards.

“Campillo is taking a long vacation to see the future.  He doesn’t want to be an opponent for anyone so he’s carefully thinking about to continue or retire.  He got tired - there was a lot of pressure.  He ran out of gas.”

Lewkowicz revealed that Javier Fortuna’s proposed bout scheduled for October 19 has been moved to November 23 due to an issue with the IBF and a women’s championship match scheduled to take place on the card.  He added that Fortuna is likely to feature on the proposed Martínez/Cotto undercard.