Does Miguel Cotto hold the key for Light Middleweight Supremacy?

Written by Cain Bradley

The Light middleweight division has come to life in the last 15 months. The common link in the first few major fights? Kermit Cintron! The former IBF welterweight champion challenged Sergio Martinez for the interim WBC world title. In a very scrappy fight a majority draw was the result despite numerous writers scoring it for Martinez and a debatable point deduction in the last round. Just three months later Kermit Cintron was back in the ring against highly touted prospect Alfredo Angulo and despite rumours of Angulo having flu, Cintron was impressive and kept himself in the title picture, while Angulo maintained his prospect tag. However after two big fights from the division, fans were starved of meaningful fights until November. However Cintron and Angulo both returned with knockout victories to keep fans ticking over.

November arrived and with it arrived the Manny Pacquaio- Miguel Cotto fight. The main event ended in a dominating win for Pacman. However the main light middleweight interest. Jewish Yuri Foreman was to take on Puerto Rican star Daniel Santos for the WBA light middleweight title. Foreman routed him for an easy decision and took the world title becoming the first Israeli to hold one. However this was only the taster for the main event .During the first weekend of December former WBO welterweight champion Paul Williams took on interim WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Martinez as a late replacement for Kelly Pavlik. Despite some people expecting a snoozefest it was a late contender for fight of the year with an amazing war that could have gone either way but Williams took the majority decision. The fight however presented opportunities for both fighters due to main level exposure and after Kelly Pavlik supposedly avoided Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez got his chance moving up to Middleweight to fight WBC&WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and he took his chance convincingly. Despite being smaller and lighter, Martinez used his speed and movement to outbox Pavlik. He is still making a decision on whether to campaign at middleweight or light middleweight.

During the next few weeks the light-middleweight picture will become clearer with a few true contenders emerging. Tonight the tall American Paul Williams takes on big punching Puerto Rican Kermit Cintron. The winner of which arguably becomes the official number1 light middleweight in the world, however Martinez might have something to say about that. Then just 3 weeks later the hard-hitting former two weight world champion and the new marquee name of the division Miguel Cotto faces the defensively sound Yuri Foreman. In his make or break fight a Miguel Cotto win could open many doors and leave many options for great fights in the division.

With Cotto joining Light middleweight it doesn’t look out of place when compared to the best divisions of today but hopefully unlike some divisions we get to see the best fight the best and some amazing fights.  In terms  ‘name’  there is only one fighter that has the huge draw factor and it is Miguel Cotto. The Puerto Rican fan favorite is very well known even outside of boxing circles and a win against him could really catapult the other into the limelight. So while Martinez looks up at Middleweight it is clear that the fight he needs, along with every other light middleweight is Miguel Cotto. But does he have the tools to beat him, well that is another story for another day.  We just have to hope that everything does go right in the mean time and the promoters don’t deny us of some great fights. While Martinez and Williams may be the best light-middleweights they should know Cotto is the fight they both need to propel them to super-stardom