Former four-division world champion Miguel Cotto is about to hang up his gloves but not before he takes care of some unfinished business.
Speaking with reporters on Thursday to promote his upcoming junior middleweight fight with James Kirkland on February 25, Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) announced that 2017 would be the last year of his career.
“This is the last year of my career and I want to end my career in the best way possible,” Cotto said, per Dan Rafael of ESPN. “I knew I wanted to come back and this is the way that I want to do it. I want to have two or three fights this year. We will see.”
The Puerto Rican fighter did add, however, that he still wants a rematch with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who he lost the middleweight world title to by unanimous decision a little over 13 months ago.
“I’m here for the best fights and the best fighters out there, so if Canelo Alvarez wants to fight, to clear what happened November 2015, they know where to find me,” Cotto continued. “It was close. We orchestrated the plan in a perfect way and we believe that we were the winners of the fight.”
That first fight actually wasn’t particularly close with the three judges scoring it 119-109, 118-110 and 117-111 for Alvarez. It’s also uncertain if Alvarez, who has been negotiating a bout with fellow Mexican fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and also has his much-ballyhooed showdown with Gennady Golovkin lurking somewhere on the horizon, will be able to find time for a second fight with Cotto in 2017. But if the two sides can somehow find a way to get it done, it would certainly be a fitting curtain drop for the legendary career of the 36-year-old Cotto, who has never been one to shy away from the big time.
