By Nate Anderson: A perturbed Michael Jennings (34-1, 16 KOs) had this to say about the media giving him few chances in his bout with Miguel Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs) on February 21st at the Madison Square Garden, in New York:
“They were trying to say that he’d already beaten me. Some Puerto Rican press asked me what I thought about Cotto having already arranged his next fight with [Antonio] Margarito in June. I said ‘he shouldn’t count his chickens.”
Jennings, 31, a former BBBofC British welterweight, isn’t happy that he’s being given little chance of beating Cotto. However, Jennings is going to give it his all and isn’t going to give up easy. What Jennings has going for him is that little has been seen of him in the U.S., and few people know about his style of fighting.
Being discounted by so many may ultimately play into Jennings’ hands because he’s a lot better than people are giving him credit for. For the most part, people are assuming that he has little power but that’s not really the case. That’s a result of the early part of his career when Jennings was more of a pure boxer and didn’t try for knockouts.
In his past 10 fights, he’s evolved into a more of a boxer/puncher, showing good power. Indeed, Jennings likely punches as hard as Antonio Margarito with a single punches, though he doesn’t throw nearly as many punches per round as Margarito.
Jennings is more of a counter puncher, who likes to wait on his opponents, taking advantage of their mistakes. When he sees an opportunity, however, he can come right after his opposition and let loose with a lot of punches in a big hurry. Jennings has a great set of offensive weapons that shouldn’t be ignored. His left hook to the body is quite good, as is his ability to throw uppercuts, jabs and right hands.
When he’s letting his hands go, he’s easily as dangerous as Margarito. However, he’s a slow starter, and tends to fight cautiously in the early part of his fights, looking for openings to drop his bombs. Jennings’ power is still getting better, even at 31.
He’s a young 31, and is improving with every fight in terms of power and boxing ability. If Cotto thinks this is going to be an easy win, he’s sadly mistaken, because Jennings is going to be a huge test for him. If Jennings can stay away from Cotto in the early part of the fight, using that part of the fight to jab Cotto and make him use his short legs to move around, Jennings has a good chance of landing something on Cotto’s chin in the later rounds and taking him out.
However, he’s got to be careful and keep his distance from Cotto until then, because Jennings has problems with defending against left hooks to the head. That’s perhaps his biggest weakness that I’ve noticed in all of his biggest fights.
He doesn’t seem to have a defense against that punch other than staying on the outside and jabbing. Thankfully, Cotto doesn’t have a really good left hook that he focuses on all the time. He does throw a good left hook, but he tends to throw it more to the body rather than to the head. That’s a good thing for Jennings.
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