By Dave Lahr: Welterweight Miguel Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs) makes his comeback on Saturday against unknown British challenger Michael Jennings (34-1, 16 KOs) at Madison Square Garden for the vacant WBO welterweight strap. Jennings, 31, travelling all the way from England to make this fight, will be facing a tough pro Cotto audience filled with many of his fellow Puerto Ricans.
Cotto, 28, is trying to rebound from his loss to Antonio Margarito in July, in which Cotto elected to run most of the fight but then tired out and was stopped in the 11th. The loss was a disastrous one for Cotto and a costly one, because not only did he lose many fans but he absorbed a terrible beating in the process.
With the recent news about Margarito being caught with padded gloves before his fight with Shane Mosley in January, Cotto’s loss to Margarito now doesn’t look nearly as bad as it did before. Though nothing will probably ever be proven as far as Margarito putting something in his gloves for the Cotto fight, it still may be perceived by some that Margarito could have and that’s probably enough to give Cotto a little boost with fans.
He took a terrible beating in the fight, with his nose being broken and both eyes badly cut. It’s a credit to Cotto that he was able to fight as long as he did with the serious injuries and punishment he absorbed in the fight.
His opponent on Saturday, Jennings, hasn’t faced a fighter like Cotto before and it’s an unknown how he’ll perform against him. Under most circumstances, when you have a fighter that has faced much inferior opposition they end up getting badly beaten and many instances stopped early on.
However, styles make fights, and when there’s a title on the line you can never be sure what you’ll get from a fighter. It isn’t as if Jennings has been beaten a lot in his career, because he’s only lost once, a 12-round split decision in 2006 against Young Mutley.
To be sure, Mutley isn’t a world class fighter and given the fact that Jennings has lost against a guy like this, it would seem likely that Jennings will have huge problems against a fighter in the class of Cotto. Jennings, though, has very good boxing skills and when he’s fighting on the outside, using his jab and combinations, he’s a hard fighter to beat.
The questions in the minds of many boxing fans, is whether Cotto will be the same fighter he was before the Margarito fight or will he be slightly diminished. With the amount of head shots that Cotto took against Margarito, it would seem improbable that he’ll be as good as he was back then.
On a side now, Cotto hasn’t looked good in recent photos. He appears dried up, too thin as if he’s taken off too much weight in a short time to make the 147 pound weight limit. His preparation to make the welterweight limit may leave him feeling too weak to fight in his typical hard working style.
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