In a scant few hours WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto will step through the ropes inside of the MGM Grand to defend his crown against stubborn Ricardo Mayorga in Las Vegas. This bout, while perhaps one-sided on paper, is significant on many fronts because just the simple fact that Cotto is still in the spotlight like this shows how much resilience and professionalism he has and the 30-year old also has many fruitful opportunities waiting for him if successful.
Speaking from the media center inside of the MGM Grand earlier this week, promoter Bob Arum couldn’t help but to show serious admiration when speaking of his time with Cotto. The stylish Puerto Rican has been with Arum’s Top Rank outfit for all of his years as a professional but the 79-year old admits that his initial interest in Cotto was relayed from another important party.
“You have to understand, when Todd DuBoef went to the Olympics in Australia he came back singing the praises of this Puerto Rican guy,” Arum reflected. “I asked him ‘Did he win a medal?’ but he told me he lost in the first round. But we later flew to Puerto Rico and with the help of Peter Rivera we signed Cotto. Cotto’s been a like a brother to Todd and it’s been more like a family arrangement than anything else.”
<--- Slideshow: Photographer Naoki Fukuda covers the Cotto-Mayorga weigh in
During Cotto’s early years as professional he divided his ring conquests between such locales as Texas, Puerto Rico, New York and California before making a strong impression in Las Vegas. All the while Arum never wavered in his belief that his fighter was destined for some kind of greatness.
“Absolutely,” he confirmed to me. “Convinced right from the get go that he was going to be a star. You never know, sometimes you are disappointed, but we tabbed him for stardom right from the beginning.”
Cotto would eventually win titles at 140 and 147 pounds, tearing through a colorful batch of prizefighters and showing his star power on the East Coast by selling out Madison Square Garden on numerous occasions, most notably in 2007 with his victories over Zab Judah and Shane Mosley. It wasn’t until his July 2008 encounter against Antonio Margarito that real trouble would be looming for the Caguas star.
Inside of the MGM Grand we would see Cotto build an early lead against an onrushing Margarito before fading over the second half of the fight and eventually being dropped twice late and stopped in the 11th round by a merciful Kenny Bayless. It was a shocking defeat to one of the sport’s biggest attractions and Arum admits that he never expected things to play out the way they did.
“When the fight was made we had both fighters,” said Arum. “We knew it would be a good fight but we were confident that Cotto was going to win. So we were stunned.”
Cotto would go on to defeat Joshua Clottey nearly a year later and subsequently drop another brutal defeat when he was halted inside of twelve rounds by Manny Pacquiao in November of 2009. He bounced back with a victory last summer over Yuri Foreman and now finds himself right back in the thick of things.
Arum knows that revenge is still on Cotto’s mind and he is fully willing to give his star all the chances he wants.
“He’s done great for us and he’s a very wealthy man today. He saved his money, his father invested it well. He’s set for life. I think he’ll continue fighting. I know if he wins this fight he is looking for revenge against Antonio Margarito. And he would be looking for revenge next year against Manny Pacquiao.”
