Austin Trout: Beating Charlo would be bigger than beating Cotto

Former 154-pound titleholder and longtime contender Austin Trout has a chance to win another belt on June 9, when he faces WBC junior middleweight titleholder Jermell Charlo on Showtime from Los Angeles.

The 32-year-old Trout, now a hardened veteran of the sport, says a win in this fight could be even bigger than when he upset Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden in 2012.

From ESPN:

“I’m trying to rewrite my story with the career defining win. Beating Jermell Charlo will be career-defining. It will be bigger to me than beating Cotto in the Garden, straight up. I ain’t looking towards the past. I’m always looking to the future. And the future, it really is going through Jermell.”

Trout (31-4, 17 KO) has his work cut out for him against Charlo (30-0, 15 KO), who is younger and fresher, unbeaten, and has been showing lately that he may be a much bigger puncher than his record indicates.

But would upsetting Charlo really be bigger than ending Miguel Cotto’s undefeated streak at “the world’s most famous arena”? I don’t know. But I know it’s probably good to go in thinking so. It tells us that Trout is still thinking big and positively at this point in his career, and he’s not signing up just to get a paycheck.