Reaffirming his long-held desire to retire from boxing by the age of 30, Miguel Cotto told Primera Hora that the plans aren't changing, and that he expects to fight twice in 2010 and then hang up his gloves.
Cotto (34-2, 27 KO) turns 30 in October 2010.
"That's ten months, so one, maybe two fights, and I'll retire completely from boxing."
He's also got a couple of opponents in mind. Former lightweight champion and current shot welterweight Jose Luis Castillo's name came up again, and Cotto said he was open to fighting him upon his return, which is likely to be in June, and will probably wind up being on the weekend of the Puerto Rican Day Parade, a weekend he usually fights in New York. This year, it might even be possible to team Cotto-Castillo, for instance, with Top Rank's big idea at featherweight, a could-be-classic scrap between Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa.
Cotto's also open to the idea of going up to 154 pounds to challenge Yuri Foreman for the WBA title. Foreman dominated Cotto's fellow Puerto Rican, Daniel Santos, on the Cotto-Pacquiao undercard. Were Cotto to win a title at 154, it would give him major titles in three weight classes. He would really be quite small for the weight class. Against Foreman, for instance, he'd be giving up four inches of height and five inches of reach.
I don't know what it is, but Cotto's the rare sort that I think might be totally serious about early retirement, and possibly even staying away for good and never returning for more cracks at glory the way Felix Trinidad has done. Cotto's never been a boisterous sort, never seemed terribly concerned with his legacy or the perception of himself among the boxing media or public.
And I don't mean to question Cotto's dedication or passion or anything like that -- quite the opposite, really, I'm a huge Cotto fan. But there was a quote from the great Marvin Hagler where Hagler said, "If they cut my bald head open, they'll find one big boxing glove. That's all I am. I live it." Cotto doesn't seem to be a guy like that, at least on the surface. For a guy who could be so vicious and coolly calculated in the ring, he's always come off as someone who has the mindset of having a job to do, so he does it, rather than a guy who has to fight because that's all he can do, or all he wants to do. That's total armchair psychology and probably amounts to little more than a hill of beans in this crazy world. Just how I've always taken Cotto's general demeanor.
Anyway, I hope he comes back really strong and stays a while longer than he plans to, because I love watching him fight, and he's the sort of fighter you miss when he's gone.