By Jermill Pennington: Prior to this past weekend’s fight featuring Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto there was a narrative in the boxing world that the elder Miguel Cotto had in some way revitalized himself under the tutelage of legendary trainer Freddie Roach.
After suffering back to back unanimous decision losses at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout, many believed that Cotto’s hall of fame career was near the end. Nonetheless like many fighters before him Cotto was not yet ready to hang up the gloves. Now at a cross road in his career losing to the little known Austin Trout, Cotto reached out to Freddie Roach in search of a transformation of sorts.
It would be at this time that Cotto would make the move to the middle weight division to try his hand there. After plowing through an over matched Delvin Rodriguez in three rounds the stage was then set to meet the reigning WBC Middle Weight king Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez.
With Roach now in his corner Cotto seemed to be as confident as ever. Roach would begin keying on such skills as the devastating left hook that Cotto possessed in his earlier years that he had seemed to go away from. Now I’m going to fast forward a bit as I don’t feel the need to detail that Sergio Martinez was coming off a yearlong lay off recovering from a knee injury. Cotto would capture the prestigious WBC middleweight title in impressive fashion with Martinez not making the bell for the 10th round. In Cotto’s first defense he would make short work of the tough and cagey veteran Daniel Geale in four rounds. All that said and done now leads us to what the boxing world witnessed this past weekend in Miguel Cottos second defense of his middle weight strap versus Saul Alvarez.
Coming into the fight versus Alvarez many wondered had Cotto’s recent resurgence been due to match making, or the brilliant strategic implementation done by Freddie Roach. I myself have gone on record saying that if you think Roach created the Manny Pacquiao we have come to love you must be high on drugs. In my estimation the Manny Pacquiao that we see today fought in a very similar fashion the day he and Roach meet. Not to say there hasn’t been some fine-tuning of his skills over the years; however the typhoon that is Pacquiao cannot be made, but only created. I will back the assertion by asking how much different is the Pacquiao from 2003 versus Marco Antonio Barrera, to 2012 version of Pacquiao who suffered the most shocking KO in recent memory at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez? In my opinion he was almost the exact same, only older and fights at a much slower pace.
So, can you teach an old dog new tricks? Simply put the answer to me would be No. what you can do is find new ways to relight the fire in the fighter that may have diminished over time. Teddy Atlas has been seen as somewhat a laughingstock since his “we are firemen” rant in his first fight with Timothy Bradley. Many accused Atlas of putting on for the cameras, as if to say his antics were not genuine.
I on the other hand understand the motivational aspects that come along with working with an elite athlete. The Miguel Cotto we seen this past weekend boxed, that said it is important to remember that Miguel Cotto out boxed a still primed Shane Mosely to the surprise of many.
Floyd Mayweather was recently in the news for his conversation with Ben Thompson of Fight Hype for criticizing the instructions Roach was giving Cotto during the fight. “I hear people talking about Freddie Roach is a legendary trainer, but I think Cotto was fighting the same way before he got with Freddie Roach. I think Pacquiao was fighting the same before he got with Freddie. Both guys were already world champions before they got to Freddie Roach”.
Freddie’s corner instructions over the years have always been mediocre at best in my opinion, just another example of an old dog not being able to learn new tricks.
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