For once, two top-notch fighters got what they wanted. They got a shot at each other.
Former three-division champion Miguel Cotto agreed last week to move up in weight to face undersized middleweight champion Sergio Martinez June 7 at Madison Square Garden. It is a fight each had long publicly said they wanted. It figures to be one of the year’s biggest fights and one of the most popular among Hispanic fight fans.
The HBO pay-per-view show will be held on the weekend of one of New York City’s biggest events, the annual Puerto Rican Day parade. Cotto has fought on that weekend several times and sold out the Garden, but never against an opponent as significant as Martinez.
Martinez was so anxious to make the match he agreed to fight at a catch weight of 159, a pound below the division limit to accommodate the former junior middleweight champion. But that does not put Martinez at a disadvantage because he has seldom come in at 160 and his promoter, Lou DiBella, has long claimed Martinez would gladly fight at the 154-pound junior middleweight limit if the fight was the right match.
The fighters announced the deal Thursday on their personal Twitter accounts rather than wait for a more formal pronouncement of what could become an historic moment for Puerto Rican boxing.
If Cotto can defeat the Argentine, he would become the first Puerto Rican to win world titles in four weight classes, having already worn title belts at junior welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight. Although middleweight knockout artist Gennady Golovkin may be the hottest name in the division and holder of the WBA title, it remains Martinez who wears the linear title, as well as the WBC belt and remains the more universally legitimate champion.
That is especially true because the WBO version now held by Peter Quillen was stripped from Martinez without proper reason and without opportunity to defend it in the ring.
Cotto (38-4, 31 KOs) lost back-to-back junior middleweight title fights to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout in 2012 and appeared to be nearing the end of the line himself before stopping journeyman Delvin Rodriguez in three rounds Oct. 5. That fight was his first working with new trainer Freddie Roach, a shift in approach Cotto believes has revived his career at 33.
After two recent knee operations, the 38-year-old Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KOs) understands he is most certainly approaching the end of his career and is looking to turn his seventh title defense into a major payday. He will have not fought since outpointing Martin Murray a year ago in a fight in which he was knocked down and barely held on to win in front of a rain-soaked hometown crowd of nearly 50,000 in Buenos Aires.
It was the second consecutive fight in which Martinez had been dropped, the other coming in the final round of what was a one-sided victory over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but one Martinez barely held on to win after going down twice in the final round (one was not called a knockdown). It is fair to say he staggered to the finish after administering a boxing lesson for 11 rounds.
Martinez injured his right knee in both fights, the first time when he fell haphazardly after Chavez drilled him two years ago. The combination of those injuries, the stunning end to the Chavez fight and the resulting subpar performance vs. Murray will add an air of mystery to this bout, not that it needs any extra drama.
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