Oscar De La Hoya News: 'The Golden Boy' calls Cotto's WBC issue a 'disgrace' to the sport, predicts how Cotto-Canelo fight will go down
Six-division world champion Oscar De La Hoya is not pleased with Miguel Cotto's stripping of the World Boxing Council (WBC) world middleweight title.
Cotto was stripped of the said title after the WBC claims he and his camp "failed to abide by the rules and regulations" of the organization. A follow-up report by ESPN says Cotto refused to pay the WBC a sanctioning fee worth $300,000.
According to De La Hoya, what Cotto got involved in is a "disgrace" to the sport of boxing.
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"It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace to the promotion," De La Hoya told Rick Reeno of Boxingscene.com."It's a disgrace to the sport to do something like that. Every fighter dreams of fighting for the WBC middleweight championship and to do something like that is a disgrace."
"Look, I can assure of one thing - Canelo is ticked off about it," he added.
This weekend, Cotto will be facing De La Hoya's most prized ward today, former world champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. The fight will take place at the Mandalay Bay Resorts & Casino in Las Vegas. Many have already given their respective thoughts on the fight.
For De La Hoya, Cotto will be using the same strategy that most of Alvarez's past opponents have.
"So my philosophy behind that is that they want to drown 'Canelo'," De La Hoya said in another Boxingscene report. "They want to go in there and drown him in the later rounds and try and take him into deep waters and get him tired. 'Canelo' is prepared for it. Look, the (Floyd) Mayweather fight, the (Erislandy) Lara fight, the Austin Trout fight - he's gone 12 rounds a lot of times."
De La Hoya adds that while he is confident that Cotto has been well prepared by Freddie Roach, he is still skeptical if the Puerto Rican champion would be able to outwork "Canelo".
"So what I'm thinking is that, look, if Cotto thinks he can outbox 'Canelo' - how many rounds can he do it for? That's the question," De La Hoya explains. "Can he box and stand on his toes for twelve rounds at that age? Maybe it's impossible [and] maybe not."
