The upcoming November middleweight world championship fight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez "has been agreed to for the past couple of weeks," but the sides are "still trying to settle" on a venue, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. Roc Nation Sports President Michael Yormark, who is Cotto's promoter, was in L.A. this week to meet with Alvarez promoter and Golden Boy President & co-Founder Oscar De La Hoya to "go over the offers and crunch the numbers" for the fight. There are "three venue deals on the table." One is from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, one is from The Wynn in Las Vegas, in partnership with Thomas & Mack Center, and one is from MSG, which is "essentially Cotto's home arena." Both Las Vegas offers are "multimillion-dollar guaranteed ticket buys with the usual provisions for rooms and food credit." But sources said that the MGM Grand offer is more than $1M "more than the Wynn/Thomas & Mack offer." The MSG offer is for a guarantee north of $6M -- cash, not tickets -- meaning the promotion "gets the money and retains the rights to the top floor seats to sell" (ESPN.com, 7/22).
