So, Floyd not fighting Cotto was ducking, and now they are, and it's a cherry-pick?

I don't think Floyd was ducking, and I don't think it's a cherrypick now, but it hurts his legacy that he missed out on that year of welterweight competition when Cotto was undefeated and the fight was ripest.

 

this isn't prime cotto, he was prime around 07, however he has improved his clinching ability and footwork.

only blind cotto fans and *****s think he's better now

 

At the time, having the array of fighters he had, I think so. Cotto took big risks fighting the likes of Torres, Judah, Mosley, and eventually Margarito...Arum would never make money if he couldn't ever make a decent competitive fight with the big guys in his stable. I could easily see Arum complicating the negotiations and making them fall through, but it would have been nice to see Floyd in the mix, saying "I'm the man to beat, I want Cotto", instead of not having him there at all. As boxing fans, we shouldn't just say "oh it's an Arum fighter, so it wouldn't have happened." Floyd was nowhere to be found at the time that Cotto had immense momentum, and while I don't think he was "scared", it hurts his legacy.

 

Right, so there's no use getting too mad about it either way, but when judging Floyd's legacy, that void will be there. Who knows if post-Mosley, still undefeated, Cotto would have pushed for a Floyd fight.

2007, right before Floyd's "retirement":

"He always runs [from me], makes excuses on why he shouldn’t fight Miguel Cotto. I'm here for the big names. If he doesn't want to fight me than I can do something else. I don't know," Cotto said.

"He's afraid to lose," promoter Bob Arum, quoted by the Arizona Republic , regarding WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25KOs).

"I can tell you what he'll say," Arum said. "He'll say he won't fight Cotto because of me, because of Bob Arum. But that's not it. He doesn't want to take a chance. He'll never fight Cotto. Never, ever."

It would have been good and exciting to see Floyd responding to that, instead of being at home. At least there would be that. But he wasn't fighting anybody on that year off, and Cotto was still taking on big names and risky fights. Again, Arum is full of ****, but we'll never know if it could have been made because when the time was right, one of them was around, and the other wasn't.

 

Maybe its Floyd's issues with Promoters but I haven't seen him in too many " Ripe " fights in the WW division.
Judah is about the only one that comes to mind.

 

Right, but it's hard to potentially decide to push for a fight with a fighter whose claiming he's retired. At the end of the day, Cotto is likely not going down as an All Time Great, so who he calls out is less of an issue for his legacy than it is for Floyd, who missed a chance to dethrone 3 or 4 active and dangerous opponents that either left the division or remained in a different state upon his return.

 

"Floyd not fighting Cotto was ducking, and now they are, and it's a cherry-pic"

^^^
Going by that.....everyone was saying Pacquiao was ducking Mosley (2009), but then when he picks him (2011), it's a picture of a cherry...

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Yes; I do. But only when he had both Floyd and Cotto and had enough of milking some more money out of them both.

But other than that, once Arum lost Floyd it was "Game-Over" for ever getting Floyd/Cotto in the ring together while he still had control of Cotto.

 

Arum set up a call to negotiate a Pacquiao fight when Floyd was on vacation that he didn't take :conf Clearly there are and were paydays out there for Floyd that he felt he could pass and chose to relax instead. 2 years of inactivity, millions of dollars.