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Oscar De La Hoya: 2015 will be huge for Canelo Alvarez

Fighters Network
25
Nov

Although Miguel Cotto still is “absolutely on the top of the list” for Canelo Alvarez, “Canelo is Canelo, where he can fight anybody and still generate the numbers that he’s happy with,” according to Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya.

De La Hoya acknowledged that negotiations have been ongoing for a May 2 bout between Cotto of Puerto Rico, THE RING’s middleweight champion, and Alvarez, a Mexican star who is THE RING’s No. 1-rated junior middleweight RING middleweight behind RING champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“I had a very important meeting yesterday with Canelo. I flew down to Guadalajara to go and see him, and we talked about a lot of things. We’re looking forward to next year being a huge year,” said De La Hoya.

“Canelo still wants to fight in May, so he’s going to fight in May. Against who? We’re going to start working on that. We’re going to start working on getting him the perfect guy to make that a huge event on that weekend.”



The 24-year-old Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) was coming off a split-decision victory over Erislandy Lara in July when a chronic ankle injury forced the cancellation of his planned Dec. 6 bout against former welterweight titleholder Joshua Clottey.

“First of all, his ankle is doing incredible,” said De La Hoya. “Canelo said that he was dealing with that pain for two years, and that he’s glad that he finally took care of it.”

Meanwhile, Cotto (39-4, 31 knockouts), who turned 34 last month, was last in the ring for his 10th-round technical knockout of Sergio Martinez, earning THE RING and WBC championships in June.

Although he is a free agent, Cotto’s last fight with Martinez was promoted by Top Rank, whose CEO is Bob Arum, and whose President is Arum’s stepson, Todd duBoef.

“We have had some initial conversation, so, obviously, Cotto is on Canelo’s radar and he’s on the top of his list,” said De La Hoya. “But Canelo is Canelo where he can fight anybody and still generate the numbers that he’s happy with.”

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