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LAS VEGAS — Miguel Cotto, who plans to retire at the end of the year, has big plans for his career finale, which is due to take place on Dec. 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
There’s a good chance he will fight the winner of the middleweight world title showdown between unified champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) and Canelo Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs), assuming the victor is not banged up from what is expected to be a hellacious battle on Saturday (HBO PPV, 8 p.m. ET) at the T-Mobile Arena.
“It’s the best way to say goodbye to boxing,” Cotto told ESPN on Thursday night at the MGM Grand.
Cotto is in town for the fight and to talk to his promoters at Golden Boy about the possibility of making a deal to fight the winner in what would be a major HBO PPV event. Eric Gomez, president of Golden Boy, said it’s a fight the company is interested in and that Alvarez is interested as well. He also said Alvarez has wanted to fight in New York, where he has never boxed.
Further, Gomez said he and Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler, who have a good relationship, have talked, and it’s a fight in which Golovkin is interested.
“Miguel has said he is going to retire at the end of the year and he wants to go out with a bang,” Gomez said. “A fight with the winner of Saturday’s fight would be a really big fight. Miguel Cotto has fought everyone and been in a lot of big fights. This would be a great way for him to go out.”
Alvarez outpointed Cotto in May 2015 in a popular pay-per-view fight to win the lineal middleweight title before vacating. Cotto was out of the ring for nearly two years before signing with Golden Boy and returning to easily outpoint Yoshihiro Kamegai on Aug. 26 to win a vacant junior middleweight belt.
But Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs), 36, the first Puerto Rican fighter to win world titles in four weight classes — middleweight, junior middleweight, welterweight and junior welterweight — said he would have no issue going back to middleweight for a chance to fight the winner of Saturday’s fight in another huge event.
“No matter what happens or who I fight in the next fight, I am here to do the best I can,” Cotto said. “I’m here to do whatever is the best for us, Golden Boy and Miguel Cotto.”
Cotto said he doesn’t much care who wins Saturday’s fight. He just wants to face the winner, be it a rematch with Alvarez or a fresh fight against GGG.
“It’s going to be a tough fight between them. Whatever happens, I am leaving the ring Dec. 31,” Cotto said. “I will have the last fight of my career in December, and fighting the winner would be a good way to go out. I would be proud to have that fight.”
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