Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) is looking to resume his career this summer against Japanese fighter Yoshihiro Kamegai (27-3-2, 23 KOs). Cotto has not fought since his late 2015 close loss to Canelo Alvarez in which he lost the middleweight championship, an 18+ month layoff by fight time. This fight would likely take place at junior middleweight.
I can only imagine that this fight is meant as a tune up before Cotto takes on a bigger name opponent. Kamegai is coming off his highly entertaining two fight series with Jesus Soto Karass in 2016, but in the same year Cotto was narrowly losing to Canelo in a toss up decision, Kamegai was being widely outpointed by Alfonso Gomez. Even at 36, I can’t imagine Yoshiro Kamegai posing any sort of threat to Miguel Cotto.
As for what Cotto will do after the tune-up, he wants either a Canelo rematch or Juan Manuel Marquez. Both would sell well, but I am not sure he is definitely going to get one of them. I also can’t see him fighting any of the new generation, as great as something like a Keith Thurman fight would be. Maybe he will get stuck with Amir Khan, or he could so something with Tim Bradley though working with Top Rank could be hard. Maybe they will try the Kirkland fight again. It’ll be interesting to see if he can land one of the fights he wants with the comparatively minor muscle of Roc Nation behind him.
