Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) will be trained by Freddie Roach when he returns to the ring in a comeback on October 5th. According to ESPN, Delvin Rodriguez is the possible opponent for the 32-year-old Cotto, and HBO will be televising it.
Cotto vs. Rodriguez isn’t exactly an HBO type of main event fight, but hopefully the fight will be packaged with a good undercard, because as it is the fight is a mismatch. Rodriguez has already been beaten by Austin Trout, Ashley Theophane, Rafal Jackiewicz, Jesse Feliciano, Andre Eason, and Isaac Hlatshwayo.
Cotto said on his social media site: “I will be back in the ring on Oct. 5 on HBO with Top Rank and Freddie Roach in my corner.”
If Cotto’s going to be on a Top Rank card it might have some decent undercard fights. Hopefully, they won’t make this a pay per view fight because it’s difficult to imagine paying to see Cotto fight Delvin Rodriguez when neither of them have world titles and Cotto has lost his last two fights.
I like Cotto and all, but paying to see someone fight after they’ve lost their last two fights just seems a little bizarre to me. Cotto needs to build himself back up by getting some solid wins under his belt so that he can make fans believe in him, because he was beaten pretty convincingly by Trout last year in December.
The fact that Cotto is back with Top Rank on this card could mean that we might be seeing Cotto facing Manny Pacquiao in the near future. That seems like the logical next move for Cotto and Top Rank. They wanted to match Cotto against Pacquiao last year, but Cotto didn’t take the fight.
I’m not so sure that Roach will be able to do much with making Cotto a better fighter. Roach is known more for teaching guys with great offensive skills, and not much in the way of defense. I doubt that Roach will be able to help Cotto much in helping him not get hit so much. Cotto is nearing the end of his career anyway, so he’s not going to be around long enough with Roach for him to change his fighting style.