With Miguel Cotto mulling an alleged $10 million dollar offer to face Canelo Alvarez on March 8, middleweight champion Sergio Martinez has disclosed the next challenger for him will be WBC mandatory Marco Antonio Rubio.
Rubio is currently the #1 contender for Martinez’s WBC title and has been lobbying for a second title shot for the past year. His first opportunity came against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in February 2012, which Rubio lost by a unanimous decision. He has threatened legal action to force the title to be stripped if Martinez opts for another opponent.
According to Martinez advisor Sampson Lewkowicz, a Rubio fight would take place in Argentina without HBO involvement.
“We’ve already made a firm proposal to Rubio to go to Argentina,” Lewkowicz told BoxingScene.com. “Unfortunately, the broadcasters who make the fights in the United States, HBO, are not that interested. For that reason the fight has to be in South America. Sergio promised [WBC President Jose] Sulaiman that he would do his mandatory fight. In Argentina they love the idea of a Mexican [opponent], so it’s all geared for that fight. Hopefully in 30 days we can specify the date. In 24 hours we can have a sellout.”
Despite these preliminary plans, Lewkowicz has not given up on a Cotto fight, mentioning the Puerto Rican star still has a chance at “history” should he be willing to wait until June 7.
“Cotto must make a decision,” said Lewkowicz. “If he wants to make history on the 7th of June in a stadium with 50,000 people, then perfect, but if not — we’ll put 50,000 people in Bueno Aires against Rubio.”
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Looks like the Martinez camp is coming to terms with how unlikely it is that Cotto will turn down $10 million dollars. That upfront money is a bigger cut than what he got against Mayweather last May.
This puts Martinez in a tough spot. Rubio, despite the lack of a big name, is a very tough opponent. He gave Chavez all he could handle even though he gave up nearly 20 pounds. And since the Chavez defeat, he’s knocked out four of his last five opponents. Martinez will be coming off a bad knee injury and facing a bruising, hard punching fighter who brings the pressure. If Martinez looks anything like the guy we saw in against Martin Murray, Rubio’s taking that belt (and preventing Gennady Golovkin of getting his wish of dethroning Sergio).
We’ll see how this plays out in the next few months, but it looks likely that Martinez will have to settle on the Chavez Jr. bout as the only big fight that closed out his career.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 