Pacquiao: Cotto doesn’t look like the same fighter he once was

By Boxing News - 12/04/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao: Cotto doesn't look like the same fighter he once wasBy Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao wasn’t impressed with the performance by Miguel Cotto in his 12 round decision loss to WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout last Saturday night. Pacquiao thinks Cotto doesn’t look like the same fighter who he beat in 2009, and he definitely believes that Cotto deserved to lose the fight against Trout.

Speaking with Yahoo Sports, Pacquiao said “To me, I see Cotto as different than before when we fought. This time he seemed a little slow and the punches weren’t really hard. I was rooting for Cotto but I think he lost.”

Cotto didn’t look like the fighter he once was back in 2009, that’s for sure. Cotto didn’t even look like the same fighter that lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. I think Cotto has had too many wars and he’s starting to show the signs of them now.

Pacquiao is kind of in the same boat as Cotto, though. He’s not as fast as he once was, and he’s not knocking guys out anymore. Pacquiao hasn’t knocked anyone out since 2009 when he defeated Cotto by a 12th round knockout. That can’t be just a coincidence, can it?

Virgil Hunter, the trainer for Amir Khan and Andre Ward, thinks that Cotto was over-trained for the Trout fight. Is that possible? It’s hard to say because he had a much different opponent in there with him this time compared to his recent fights. Trout is a real junior middleweight, and a big one at 5’10”.

Cotto’s past promoter Bob Arum had been matching him against former welterweights rather than true junior middleweights. Before the Trout fight, the only guy that Cotto fought at junior middleweight that was legit for this weight Yuri Foreman, who had no power and a bad right knee. Cotto hadn’t been really tested by a true junior middleweight and he failed when he had to fight someone bigger than him.



Comments are closed.