By Michael Lieberman: After watching Michael Jennings (34-2, 16) get destroyed by Miguel Cotto (33-1, 27 KOs) last night in the 5th round at Madison Square Garden, the big question is should Jennings hang up the gloves? Jennings says he won’t retire, saying “”I want to keep going and fight for different things, whether it be a British title or a different title.”
Well, the way I see it he most definitely should and here’s why: Jennings may see the fact that he was able to last five rounds with Cotto as a mini victory of sorts, but really that’s nothing to crow about because Jennings ran for his life for three of them and got murdered when Cotto finally tired of Jennings’ running knocked him out in the 5th.
Jennings didn’t belong in the same ring with a fighter in the class of Cotto, and I see it as ridiculous that he was even ranked as high as number #3 by the WBO. I thought Jennings was going to show some heart and fight hard but man he really stunk up the joint and screwed up his one chance at super stardom.
Jennings ran damn near the whole time and as soon as Cotto fired off a few left hooks to the body, Jennings folded like a cheap suit. Although he’ll probably continue fighting on a domestic level, probably for the British, Commonwealth or European titles, I don’t think he’ll have much success. Welterweights Kell Brook, Jan Zaveck and Frederic Klose would destroy Jennings almost as easy as Cotto did and it wouldn’t be pretty.
I suppose if he doesn’t mind being a bottom 10 fighter in the EBU or British scene it wouldn’t be bad but after challenging for a title, he’ll probably hate that idea. If it was me, I’d go out on top with this fight. Of course, I would have tried to take Cotto’s head off and not ran the whole time, but that’s me. I’m a risk taker. But I couldn’t live with myself if I fought the way that Jennings did on Saturday night. That was just awful. Retire, please.
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