It seems Golden Boy Promotions has done what Roc Nation Sports could not. They have now secured Miguel Cotto the fight he was looking for at a price he apparently agreed to. The Puerto Rican legend will meet Japanese action fighter Yoshihiro Kamegai on August 26th on HBO. This may be a set up fight that moves Cotto towards a fight with Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez in December as well.
Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) has not fought since his narrow November 2015 decision loss to Canelo Alvarez. That fight ended Cotto’s middleweight title run that began two years earlier with a shockingly dominant performance over then division king Sergio Martinez. Here Cotto returns to junior middleweight which is his much more natural weight, not that he was ever truly fighting as a full middleweight given the catch weights of all those bouts. The WBO has sanctioned this for their newly vacant junior middleweight belt too, but it is an emptry gesture. At 36, Cotto will definitely just choose to vacate it rather than fight a mandatory that he doesn’t want to fight.
Yoshihiro Kamegai (27-3-2, 24 KOs) has been in a few really great fights over the past couple years against Jesus Soto Karass and Robert Guerrero. Kamegai figures to try to do the same here, but he is not on the level of Miguel Cotto. He lost a wide decision to Alfonso Gomez in 2015, for example. Miguel Cotto should have little issue smashing out his athletically limited Japanese opponent here.
What could be more interesting is the rumored December date with Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez. HBO’s problem with Cotto/Kamegai in the past has been that the fight isn’t good enough unless it is setting something bigger up. Golden Boy may simply have used its positive relationship with HBO to get the network over that little hang up, or there may suddenly be a bigger potential fight to set up like the Marquez bout. The Mexican legend will be 44 and three years out of the ring by December, but at least he still looked like a top fighter when he was last still fighting.
No undercard has been announced as of yet.
