By Nate Anderson: According to Steve Bunce from his Boxing Hour show, Miguel Cotto is looking weight drained for his fight tomorrow night with Michael Jennings. The fact that Cotto is weight drained seems to suggest that he’s had to struggle a little more than usual in making the 147 pound welterweight weight limit. That’s not a good sign for Cotto, because if he took too much weight off during his draining and his dehydrating to make weight, this could effect him in the fight with Jennings.
In the past, Cotto has struggled to make weight at light welterweight which is why he needed to move up in weight to welterweight. But if he’s now having to work hard to take weight off to make 147, it could be sign that Cotto isn’t long for the welterweight class.
This is especially bad timing for Cotto, because he’s coming off a bad knockout loss to Antonio Margarito and the last thing that Miguel needs is to struggle to make weight. He did make weight earlier today, but it’s unclear how this weight draining will effect him tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden. Jennings always comes in shape and will be looking to work Cotto’s tail off with movement and jabs.
This is the worst time for Cotto to have to struggle to make the weight and come in weakened state. If I’m Jennings, I’m going to make Cotto move around the ring as much as possible to get him to use his legs. In past fights against Shane Mosley, Oktay Urkal, and Margarito, Cotto has tired out in the later part of the fights and been reduced to clinching and running to reduce the amount of exchanges.
This may very well happen tomorrow if Jennings can get Cotto moving a lot around the ring. Jennings needs to try and wrestle at little on the inside with clinching to try and tire Cotto out even more. The danger here, though, is that Cotto sometimes like to throw low blows in close, especially when things aren’t going his way in a fight.
When Cotto lands a low blow, he puts a lot of energy into the shot and in the case of his fight against Zab Judah, he landed some hard shots that seemed to change the course of the fight. Jennings is going to have to be on guard for that kind of stuff because it’s part of the arsenal of punches that Cotto sometimes throws in fights.
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