Canelo vs Cotto: Will money talk after Schaefer's $10M offer?

According to a report at BoxingScene.com, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has made an offer "in excess of" $10 million to Miguel Cotto for the Puerto Rican superstar to face Canelo Alvarez in a Showtime pay-per-view bout on March 8, 2014.

Cotto is a promotional free agent, and has worked with Golden Boy twice, both times in 2012. This year, he worked with Top Rank for an October date with Delvin Rodriguez on HBO.

"The main topic of discussion was a potential Canelo fight. I made him a very lucrative offer, eight figures...well in excess of $10 million dollars. He said he is going to let me know what he decides to do. I told him it could be a one fight deal or a series of fights, whatever he wants to do," Schaefer told BoxingScene.com.

Cotto (38-4, 31 KO) was thought to be working on a fight with WBC middleweight titlist Sergio Martinez, which HBO would have put on pay-per-view, but there's just no doubt that Canelo-Cotto is the bigger fight, and that there's more money to be made there. Canelo is a much bigger star than Martinez, and the Mexico vs Puerto Rico rivalry would add another wrinkle of marketability.

There's also the fact that the WBC are pushing for Martinez to return and defend his title against pointlessly-appointed mandatory challenger Marco Antonio Rubio.

Can Cotto turn down an offer like the one to face Canelo? At 33, Cotto has made clear he's not looking to stick around forever, and reportedly wanted to start a three-fight exit strategy with the October win over Rodriguez. He might stay longer than two more fights, but how much longer? And how many more eight-figure paydays are going to come his way?

Even Bob Arum, who no doubt wants to promote Martinez-Cotto badly, couldn't find fault in a guy like Miguel Cotto taking this kind of payday if he can't match it.

For whatever it's worth, Schaefer says that Peter Quillin is also an option for Cotto if he'd like to take that fight at 160.