Cotto’s scar tissue around his eyes won’t hold up under Mayweather’s pounding

By Boxing News - 02/13/2012 - Comments

Image: Cotto's scar tissue around his eyes won't hold up under Mayweather's poundingBy Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto’s face a minefield of scars around both of his eyes and cheeks, and it’s probably going to be an issue for him in his upcoming May 5th fight against unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The only reason why Cotto hasn’t been bleeding like a stuck pig in his last three fights is because his crafty promoter Bob Arum has put him in with three consecutive soft opponents. But now Cotto is no longer promoted by and is a free agent, and is free to make his own fights.

I just wonder if Arum would have ever permitted Cotto to fight the unbeaten Mayweather. I don’t seriously doubt that Arum would have ever agreed to this fight. I just think they would have said no and continued to drag old or injured fighters into the ring for Cotto to beat and look good against like he’d been doing for the last two years since his loss to Manny Pacquiao. But the scar tissue is going to be a problem for the Puerto Rican star in the Mayweather fight.

Cotto is going to get hit a lot around the eyes, nose and mouth, and if you look at Cotto’s past fights when he’s facing quality opposition, he starts to bleed like crazy once he gets hit a lot. Mayweather is going to be lighting Cotto up in this fight and I can’t help but to think that Cotto’s face is going to look like a lawnmower was run back and forth across it.

What that means for this fight is that unless they have a ringside doctor that doesn’t panic and have the fight stopped at the first sight of blood, we could see Cotto looking like a frightmask before long. What I’m hoping is that Cotto doesn’t drop to a knee and quit when he sees his own blood on his trunks and littering the MGM canvas.

I want to see Cotto fight through the pain and try and shut out the thought that he’s losing blood, but I don’t know that he will. In Cotto’s fights where he’s been cut – Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Pacquiao – he’s fought poorly once the blood started flowing. He starts running backwards full speed and dabbing constantly at his cuts and looking at his gloves to check the amount of blood. He seems to come unglued mentally when the blood starts flowing.



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