By Bob Smith: This is a very realistic question for the early to middle part of next year, say between March 2014 and August 2014. The two junior middleweight champions are on a collision course, are both immensely popular, and between them would likely beat any junior middleweight not named Floyd Mayweather Jr., Erislandy Lara or Austin Trout.
Who then would win between them: Miguel Cotto, or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez?
One way to test this thesis is to see how each of them did against Mayweather, whom they both fought within the last few years. But before we do this it is important to point out the following: Canelo LOST to Mayweather in a lopsided decision that should have been unanimous.
An article by Bob Smith dated June 4, 2013 clearly anticipated this result. In it, the author claimed that “Alvarez will land fewer than 7 punches per round en route to a clear loss.”
http://www.boxingnews24.com/2013/06/alvarez-will-land-fewer-than-7-punches-per-round-en-route-to-a-clear-loss/
The author claimed that Alvarez would land about 92 punches total in the fight, and in fact he landed 117 punches, a difference of 25 punches in his favor, or slightly more than two extra punches per round. Even more impressively, he even broke double digits in 5 of 12 rounds, with another four rounds of 9 punches each. This is second only to Oscar De La Hoya who landed 122 punches, but threw many, many more than Canelo, and many of those that landed were pillow-like and soft and during a flurry. Arguably, then, Canelo fared better against Mayweather than almost any opponent in the past 8 years. So, though Bob Smith was right about the general outcome, he did underestimate the accuracy and work rate of Canelo.
Cotto arguably did better than Alvarez, however, and I with many others rank Cotto as the most difficult opponent for Mayweather in the last 8 years. Though Cotto landed 105 punches overall compared to the 117 of Canelo, he held Mayweather to a 26% connect rate whereas his connect rate with Alvarez was 46%. Even more, Cotto actually out-landed Mayweather in the 8th round of their fight, and hit him 20 times, something I do not think has happened in Mayweather’s entire career (feel free to prove me wrong on this if you can show the statistics). Thus, he actually won a round against Mayweather strictly on number of punches landed, something that is very rare.
In discussions then about Cotto vs Alvarez, while the wear and tear on the body of Cotto cannot be denied, nor can the power and skill and accuracy and combinations of Alvarez, I would have to go with Cotto in a contest between them to win in a unanimous decision due to superior defense and skilled strategy to keep Canelo off balance. The caveat is that Canelo may have too much power, and knock Cotto out, but only Manny Pacquiao was able to do this in the 12th round of their war (I discount the Antonio Margarito fight as he had plaster in his gloves.) I doubt that Canelo has more power than Pacquiao, or better speed and blistering combinations.
So, because of the superior defense and strategy of Cotto, I would advise Canelo to take another fight or two before he attempts to take on Cotto, ideally against a semi-skilled brawler or against Carlos Molina. If he fights Molina first, then he can determine the conditions of a fight with Cotto and that just might be enough for him to pull off the victory, as he did with Trout.
In any case, it is a great fight, and I hope to see it next year.
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