By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: It’s human nature. We make our predictions based on what advantages a fighter has and pick a winner. Moments after Miguel Cotto’s history making victory over Sergio Martinez, comments filled up the blogs quicker than water in a sinking boat. The focus? Sergio’s injuries and weak knees. Days before the fight, Sergio mentioned that Cotto was only fighting him because of his injuries. In my opinion, he was building an excuse for himself right there.
Boxing is more psychological than physical strength. When both fighters are equal across the board, it then becomes who executes their game plan. But I have a few questions for those who are trying to discredit Cotto’s victory. First question; Did anyone force Sergio to take this fight? The answer is a resounding no. Was Sergio aware of his injuries prior this fight? Yes. Did Martinez agree to all the terms of the fight and then sign the dotted line? Most definitely. Could Sergio have taken on number one challenger Marco Antonio Rubio instead and then bow out the sport? Oh Yeah!!! Did Martinez know how old he was? This one is kind of hard so I’ll let the reader answer that one.
Martinez was aware of everything listed above and YET, he took the fight. Cotto fought the perfect fight and for the first time in a while, he did not fade down the stretch. He set the tone in the first round with those three knock downs. I have no sympathy for Martinez because this grown fighting decision making man stepped in the ring. He thought he could win the fight based on his skills.
Had he won the boxing industry would have went crazy. The focus wouldn’t have been so much on the on the victory, but under the conditions he won. It would have been “Martinez performed beautifully on two bad knew. And we all wonder how he would perform after the surgery and he performed beautifully. He had on two knee braces…blah blah blah”. I refuse to take away from Cotto historic victory. Cotto has won some big fights. But the fights that would have pushed him through that elite roof evaded him until tonight. Where he goes from here, we will see. But for right now, it’s Cotto’s