Cotto a stronger opponent for Mayweather than Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 02/07/2012 - Comments

Image: Cotto a stronger opponent for Mayweather than PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: There are certain fighters that theoretically would give Floyd Mayweather Jr. a lot of trouble, and Miguel Cotto is one of them. And as much as the boxing public is high on Manny Pacquiao right now, I don’t think he would give Mayweather even slight problems compared to Cotto.

The reason for that is because Pacquiao is so wild with his shots the way he likes to throw quick combinations that he’d be picked apart by Mayweather with his counter punching. If you thought Juan Manuel Marquez made Pacquiao look bad just wait until Mayweather gets a hold of him.

It would be a complete mismatch because Mayweather would tag Pacquiao with single shots to the head and make him look bad. It would be a literal clowning. Bob Arum is doing the wise thing by keeping Pacquiao away from Mayweather in the same way he’s keeping WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. away from Sergio Martinez. It is what it is.

The casual boxing fans don’t have a clue and won’t stop purchasing Pacquiao’s expensive pay per view mismatches against the foes that Arum hand-picks so there’s no point in throwing him in with Mayweather to be humiliated.

Cotto is a better fighter because he punches harder, has a much better jab than Pacquiao and doesn’t have to load up like him in order to throw with power. Cotto is also a much more technically skilled fighter than Pacquiao.

Cotto will focus on boxing Mayweather instead of trying to slug it out with him. He won’t rush forward like a primitive and try to blow Mayweather away with 1000 punches like Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has been talking about.

That would never work against Mayweather and it kind of shows you the limitations that Roach has by him thinking that Pacquiao could beat Mayweather by being more active. The way to beat Mayweather is to box him the way that Oscar De La Hoya was doing during the first six rounds of their fight.

De La Hoya would have won that fight had he continued to try and box in the second half, but instead he lost his disciplined game plan and tried to slug it out with Mayweather. This allowed Mayweather to find ample opportunities to land his counter shots and dominate the enough of the rounds in the second half of the fight to get a narrow win. Cotto has got to box Mayweather and he obviously will.