ACCORDING to a report by USA Today Sports, a match between former multiple division world champion, Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs), and former super lightweight belt-holder, Lamont Peterson (34-3-1, 17 KOs), is under serious consideration.
If it were any other year, the rumors surrounding this fight would be shocking. But, alas, it is 2016, the year in which middleweights fight welterweights and awkward match-ups have become the norm.
The Puerto Rican future hall-of-famer was connected to Yuriorkis Gamboa earlier in the summer but that buzz was quickly silenced by a spokesperson from the Cotto camp.
While a match with the Cuban would have been exceptionally baffling, Cotto-Peterson is still a bit of a head scratcher.
Peterson is listed as a full two inches taller than Cotto but has never fought at a weight higher than 144 pounds. Cotto campaigned as a middleweight in his last three fights but came nowhere close to the division limit of 160 pounds.
On the flip side, Cotto also hasn’t fought as a welterweight, Peterson’s current division, since his brutal defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao in November 2009. This all begs the question, at what weight will this match be contested? Or, further, why is this fight even taking place?
Roc Nation President, Michael Yormack, confirmed to USA Today Sports that Cotto’s next fight will be announced next week, and that it will likely take place on December 3rd in New York City and shown by HBO. There is no word, however, as to whether it will be on the actual network or on HBO pay-per-view.
The New York City based media giant chose not to distribute Manny Pacquiao’s November 5th fight against Jessie Vargas, presumably, because it did not want to cannibalize another one of its pay-per-view events taking place just two weeks later.
Pacquiao, after all, may be a thing of the past, while the light heavyweight mega-fight between Sergey Kovalev – Andre Ward ushers in the future.
Be that as it may, if the network were to place Cotto-Peterson on HBO pay-per-view, just two weeks after Kovalev-Ward, expect questions from Pacquiao supporters and stakeholders. They will demand to know the reasoning behind passing on a Pacquiao title fight only to take an inconsequential clash between Miguel Cotto and Lamont Peterson.
