Mayweather vs Cotto Looking Like the Fight For May 5

FightHype is reporting that their sources say it's a done deal: Floyd Mayweather Jr will face Miguel Cotto on May 5 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

This would be the first fight in the entire career of Miguel Cotto that isn't promoted in any way by Top Rank. Cotto's contract with Top Rank expired after his December 3 fight with Antonio Margarito, but the Puerto Rican star did say that he would stick with Top Rank to make big fights.

If Mayweather vs Cotto is more than speculation, then it looks like the best big fight came to him without Top Rank this time.

The fight will take place at the full 154-pound limit, and FightHype is saying the WBA junior middleweight title, held by Cotto, will be on the line. But Mayweather (42-0, 26 KO) has balked at fighting for non-WBC belts recently, which forced Shane Mosley to vacate the WBA welterweight belt ahead of their May 2010 fight, because Mayweather wasn't interested in paying their sanctioning fees.

Cotto (37-2, 30 KO) has been a potential opponent of Mayweather for half a decade now, but working for Top Rank, it never happened. Even when both were there, Bob Arum didn't want to make that fight because he didn't feel the timing was right, and frankly he was smart to think that way. But what wound up happening was Mayweather buying himself out of his Top Rank deal, creating a lot of bad feelings (to say the least) between himself and Arum, and since then Mayweather has not fought a single Top Rank opponent.

Cotto is 31 years old and simply wants the big fights. He was rumored to be Manny Pacquiao's opponent for a June 9 rematch, but balked at going down to 147 pounds. If a possible Mayweather fight weren't there for Cotto, maybe he would have, but Mayweather had the better cards here: He's willing to fight at 154 and can afford to pay for Cotto, and public interest in Cotto vs Mayweather may be higher than in another Pacquiao vs Cotto fight, too.

If this goes down today, it's basically a certainty that Timothy Bradley will face Manny Pacquiao on June 9.