WBA Super Welterweight “Regular” Champion Austin “No Doubt” Trout (24-0, 14KOs) issues a challenge to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (39-0, 29KOs) and joins us to discuss his thoughts on today’s announcement of the upcoming May 5th bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KOs) and Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30KOs).
After it was announced Wednesday that Mayweather would move up in weight to take on Cotto and not face Manny Pacquiao, the 154 pound division in boxing became a little slimmer. Cotto will now chase the sport’s cash kings and will probably not fight an up and coming contender for the rest of his career.
This in turn has a large effect on Trout, who holds the “regular” rights to the WBA Super Welterweight title. Cotto has the full rights to the same belt and is known as the outright champion. Ultimately, if Cotto chose to keep the belt, he would have to eventually fight Trout. With Cotto taking the Mayweather fight, it leaves Trout looking for an opponent.
It was reported yesterday that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would take part on the Cinco de Mayo’s pay-per-view undercard. Late Wednesday Oscar De La Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions, tweeted “I have a few options for canelo on may 5th. Who do you think?” A large contingent of Trout fans let themselves be heard (or read) by nominating him as Alvarez’ next opponent.
“I’ve been wanting the fight (with Canelo) since I beat his brother back in February (2011) and (Canelo) challenged me for my belt but that challenge quickly became silent and became nothing after he won his (WBC light middleweight title)”, says Trout.
After defeating Frank Loporto on Showtime this past November, Trout talked to us about exercising his mandatory right to challenge the winner of the Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito fight. This of course would be after he faced his own mandatory challenger in Australia’s Anthony Mundine whom Trout had been engaged with in a “tweef” for much of 2011.
Since November, Mundine has signed a temporary contract with Top Rank and has drastically backed off his challenge of Trout in hope that they gets household names and a higher payday.
Trout hopes that his piece of the belt will help reel in any challengers that will boost his resumé.