Austin Trout’s youth and talent will cause Cotto a lot of problems

By Boxing News - 09/30/2012 - Comments

Image: Austin Trout's youth and talent will cause Cotto a lot of problems(Photo credit: Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s) should have accepted the offer to fight Manny Pacquiao because in choosing to fight WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KO’s) on December 1st, Cotto could be kissing goodbye any chance of a big money rematch with Pacquiao should Trout dominate him and hand him another loss. Cotto was beaten in his last fight by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May.

That’s an excusable loss because Mayweather is one of the top fighters in the sport. However, that wasn’t a prime Mayweather that beat Cotto; that was an older Mayweather who purposely chose to Cotto’s fight in order to make it more exciting. Cotto still lost even with Mayweather fighting flat-footed for 12 rounds. A loss to Trout will be a much bigger flow to Cotto’s career, because Trout isn’t a huge star, and few fans see him as one of the top fighters in the sport.

Fans don’t even see Trout as being the 3rd best fighter in the junior middleweight division. He’s clearly ranked behind Saul Alvarez, Mayweather, James Kirkland, Erislandy Lara, and Alfredo Angulo. This is why it’s going to be a real big blow to Cotto’s career if he takes a loss to Trout.

This is a bad match-up for Cotto, and I’m frankly surprised that he chose to fight Trout. First of all, Trout isn’t old, he’s not weak, and he doesn’t stand toe-to-toe with his opposition. He’s a well schooled southpaw fighter with excellent boxing skills and respectable power. I see Trout as a boxer/puncher that has the ability to move from one part of his game to another in an instant. He’s got great wheels, and really long arms that he uses to keep shorter fighters like Cotto on the outside where they’re helpless against him. Trout has a five inch reach advantage which is huge. That’s going to make it really tough for Cotto land anything in this fight unless Trout gives up his height and reach by letting Cotto crowd him all night. I don’t think Trout will do that, because he’s someone that knows how to use the entire ring to box circles around his opposition.

Cotto has been given some easy fights in the past couple of years against guys like Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga and a past his prime Antonio Margarito. Trout is so much better than those fighters are that it’s not even funny. He’s not shot, he’s not old and he’s not coming off of three eye surgeries. I think it’s safe to say that Cotto is going to get a boxing lesson on December 1st against Trout.

I just hope that we don’t have to hear a lot of excuses about the loss afterwards. There can’t be because Trout is going to show conclusively that he’s the better fighter. Any excuses that possibly come up later on from Cotto or his team will likely be seen as just face-saving excuses to cover up for the fact that Cotto got beat by the better man in the ring.



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