Saul "Canelo" Alvarez said recently that he and Miguel Cotto "both need each other," but Cotto clearly disagrees. According to reports Cotto's representatives have said he's not ready to take on Canelo, forcing the Mexican superstar to look elsewhere for the first of three fights he plans on staging in 2014.
"We hope that the fight with Cotto will be happening later in," 2014, Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer said.
Canelo has his eyes on three opponents, all of whom have legitimate claims at the big-money opportunity. The loudest has been Erislandy Lara, who has derided Alvarez as "Canela" on Twitter, and called him a "baby" that has all his decisions made by Golden Boy.
A second choice is Carlos Molina, the IBF 154-lb. champ who is preferred by Canelo's trainer/manager Eddy Reynoso. "We want to go forward and [Alfredo] Angulo is coming off a knockout loss. Lara is better, but the ideal opponent is the champion Molina. He has all of the merits and people saw him on pay-per-view in September, and that is something that we would be looking for," Reynoso said.
Angulo's camp disagrees, and their words are important. Schaefer is believed to prefer Angulo as the next opponent because of his action-packed approach.
"Canelo just came off a one-sided drubbing to Floyd Mayweather," said Virgil Hunter, Angulo's trainer. "That shouldn't be a reason not to fight because both of them are coming off losses." Hunter went on to say that Angulo came off better in his loss to Lara than Alvarez did against Floyd.
"The bottom line is Angulo is coming off a much more impressive style of fight than Canelo. The world doesn't want to see Canelo fight Molina. Canelo has to give the fans what they want. The fans want to see Canelo and Angulo."
As for Cotto, there has still been nothing official announced but he is expected to square off with Sergio Martinez in 2014 for Sergio's middleweight strap. Should Cotto win, he'd become the first Puerto Rican born fighter to win titles in four weight classes.
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