Boxing trainer Robert Garcia believes that the highly anticipated showdown between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto is a fifty-fifty fight and although Alvarez has an advantage in youth, Garcia cannot help but point out Cotto’s career renaissance.
In a recent interview with FightHub, the 40-year-old trainer from Oxnard said that three fights ago he would have easily picked “Canelo” to best the four-division Puerto Rican champ. However, since 2012, when Cotto went 0-2 as a junior middleweight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout, he has revitalized his career going 3-0 under the tutelage of Freddie Roach.
“If I had to put money, I would probably put it on (Canelo) because of his youth and stuff, but it’s going to be hard,” Garcia said in FightHub interview. “Cotto has the skills, he’s got the experience and just like I said he’s been looking really good in his last three fights.”
Garcia said that the Puerto Rican looks like a “new Cotto” and that he can’t see the man losing. Garcia also mentioned that while the fight will not garner as much worldwide attention as Mayweather-Pacquiao, which took place in May of this year, this is the biggest fight to be made in the sport and he is excited for the latest edition of the Mexico-Puerto Rico ring-rivalry.
“Cotto-Canelo can be, if not the biggest but one of the biggest Mexican-Puerto Rican rivalries,” Garcia said. “I think they’re going to do really good on pay-per-view and it’s a fight that’s so close that you can’t really pick a winner. That’s why it’s going to be such a great fight.”
Garcia has won awards from Ring Magazine and the Boxing Writer’s Association of America for trainer of the year in 2011 and 2012 respectively. He has notably trained his younger brother Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KO’s), Argentine slugger Marcos “Chino” Maidana (35-5, 31 KO’s) and developed Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KO’s) from his amateur years and guided him through his WBA lightweight title reign in 2011.
Currently, Garcia is training Rios for his upcoming welterweight showdown with WBO welterweight titleholder Timothy Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KO’s) scheduled for Nov. 7 in Las Vegas.
