The efforts of 50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather trying to sign Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30KOs) to TMT will soon come to an end. Cotto, who for all but one of his fights fought under the Top Rank banner, appears to be enjoying his free agent status. His fight with Floyd Mayweather this past May would have been difficult to pull off if the Puerto Rican star was fighting under Top Rank because of the strained relationship Mayweather has with his former boss, Bob Arum.
The three division champion, Miguel Cotto, understands the politics of being a promoter. He is a promoter himself and the ability to put two promoters on the same page, is at times, extremely complex to say the least. Big money fights often are not pursued because of a promoters reluctance to work with one another. It’s important for 50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather to understand from the outset, that the same rule applies in boxing that applies in life as well. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And all that means, is to be respectful and welcoming to fellow promoters, if TMT is going to be as “different” as they claim they want to be to a sport that needs it so drastically.
Not to worry… The Money Team seems to be having no problems finding elite boxers in the game to sign. Fighters such as Yuriorkis Gamboa, Andre Dirrell, Billy Dib, and Celestino Caballero, quickly joined the upstart company just to name a few. Miguel Cotto is just not interested at this point in his career. Miguel Cotto Promotions and The Money Team could be competitors in the near future. Let’s just hope, for the sake of the game, that both parties can conduct business together. And let’s wish they can co-exist better than the aging promoters like Bob Arum and Don King did when they first broke into the business. Boxing can’t survive another 4 or 5 decades with more of the same.
