By Michael Lieberman: Former WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto must be a glutton for punishment, because why else would he even consider fighting his conqueror Antonio Margarito again after the last fight between the two of them. In that fight, Cotto was taking big punches, getting battered, bleeding all over the place, and taking knees as if he were bowing in front of royalty or something. Although he officially didn’t quit in the 11th round, you might as well call it that after he took a second knee to avoid the oncoming charge from Margarito, who looked like was ready to take what remained of Cotto’s bleeding head off his shoulders.

Cotto looked like a mess, blood everywhere, his face swollen from the numerous shots that Margarito had landed and looking every bit a loser in the fight. For that reason, it seems almost insane of him that he would want to risk having that happen to him a second time. I don’t care how many times he fights Margarito, Cotto will get beaten to a bloody pulp no matter what he does in the fight. He can try running, clinching or slugging, none of it will work against Margarito. He just needs to face the facts, Margarito is his master, and always will be.

I knew it coming into the fight after having absorbed the last handful of fights of Cotto, and I saw what Margarito probably saw, namely that Cotto is small for a welterweight, runs out of gas quickly, is hurt easily, slugs too much for his own good, and cuts easily like a stuck pig.

With all that going against him, it was no wonder that he lost to Margarito. Indeed, losing was a foregone conclusion as far as I’m concerned and the only real interest for me was just how bad Cotto would get beaten. As it turns out, it was quite bad in fact, but believe me, not nearly as bad as it could have been if he had chosen to stand and trade with Margarito like Cotto often does against most of his opponents. Instead of doing that, he took a hint by seeing how Margarito had decimated Kermit Cintron in an earlier fight, in which Margarito had thrown over 100 punches per round, and figured that he would be better off running from him. It worked for Cotto in part, but it wasn’t something that Cotto could sustain for a full 12 rounds.

Most boxing fans think that Cotto will elect to clinch Margarito often when they fight again, knowing that he can’t run like he did last time without badly running out of gas again. I agree, Cotto can’t run, that didn’t work for him and it won’t likely ever work for him. He’s too short and stocky to run for long without tiring out. That takes a special fighter to do that. However, he did show that Margarito can and will be vulnerable in the future for that kind of fighter when he comes along, but that doesn’t apply to Cotto. For him, he’s going to have to selectively fight Margarito at times, hitting him with flurries, clinching him afterwards and moving away if possible.

There’s no way he can clinch his way to victory against Margarito, because he’ll get nailed with too many uppercuts at close range while attempting to clinch, and end up a bloody mess once again. However, I think he’ll do much better than he did last time if he at least tries to clinch. Let’s face it, though, Cotto is going to take another savage beating from Margarito, make no mistake about that. Clinching, running or any other tactic that Cotto chooses to us, will only put off slightly his eventual defeat by Margarito. In fact, it may prolong the beating, allowing it to go on longer than it would have otherwise.

Although personally, I think he’s going to be stopped much quicker than the 11th round next time, because he took a massive amount of big head shots, far too many to have to get back in the ring only a year later to face even more. I see it as a 5th, possibly 6th round TKO win for Margarito. As much as I like Cotto as a fighter, I think he’s finished, washed up as a fighter after his beating from Margarito. Their next fight will show this in stark contrast for all to see. It’s sad that Cotto will probably have to take another beating, but it’s the way of boxing. The strong survive and the weak full by the wayside. Cotto is about to become obsolete, a model that has past it’s use by date.