By Isaac Ortiz: The same way that Bob Arum is marinating a fight between Juan Manuel Lopez and Yurorkis Gamboa, it is time to start thinking Miguel Cotto vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. For years the rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico have remain one of the biggest rivalries in sports. Are the Yankees and Red Sox of boxing.
Within this rivalry Chavez Sr. has two of victories of its own. It was 1987 when Puerto Ricans saw Edwin “el chapo” Rosario, one of their best fighters at the time get knocked out by Chavez Sr. Then a couple years later Puerto Ricans put their hopes in Hector “macho” Camacho to get revenge for them. The results were the same as the first time; Chavez Sr. beat a very skilled fighter in Camacho. This would be another opportunity for Puerto Ricans to finally beat a member of the Chavez family.
Cotto is battle tested, so in order to build this fight up, Arum must put Chavez Jr. with a quality opponent one more time as he did last month. Chavez beat a quality opponent in John Duddy and showed immediate rebirth under new trainer Freddie Roach. One more big fight with someone with the caliber of Sergio Martinez or Paul Williams will put a lot of weight in Chavez Jr. resume. As for Cotto, he has already a polished resume with fights against Margarito, Mosley and Manny Pacquiao. So an easy fight for Cotto who is already a draw in New York City would be a no brainer that HBO could be tempted to put on its schedule for the fall. This fight has the potential to be an easy sell out of the Madison Square Garden were Cotto drew a near sell out against Mexican Antonio Margarito in 2008.
But this fight is not only about the fighters; it is also about the trainers. Cotto is currently trained by Hall of fame trainer Emanuel Steward while Chavez new trainer is Freddie Roach who is consider by most as the best trainer in the last couple of years. Roach put a fight plan for Manny Pacquiao last year that dismantle Cotto and send him to the canvas three times. It will be very interesting to see what strategy Emmanuel puts together against a fast and bigger Chavez.
This fight has the recipe to be the next chapter in this long time rivalry and great for Top Rank who promotes both fighters.