Cotto-Clottey: Has Miguel Recovered Mentally from His Beating by Margarito?

By Boxing News - 06/08/2009 - Comments

By Manuel Perez: This Saturday night, we’re going to learn a lot about what World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (33-1, 27 KOs) has left in the tank when he faces Joshua Clottey (35-2, 20 KOs) at Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York. Cotto hasn’t faced a live threat since being beaten by Antonio Margarito last year in a bad beat down in July.

Cotto had his torn up in the fight and ended up getting stopped in the 11th after taking a couple of knees to escape heavy punishment that the powerful Margarito was inflicting upon Cotto in the fight. A beating like that often has lasting effects for a fighter and you never really know what a fighter has left until they fight a quality opponent that can test their ability to take a punch.

Cotto’s last opponent, British welterweight Michael Jennings, was a waste of time for Cotto, because he learned nothing from the fight because of Jennings’ powder puff punches. Cotto might as well have skipped that bout entirely, because it was not a fight that could give Cotto a real test like the one that he’s going to be receiving on Saturday night.

If Cotto thinks this is going to be an easy fight against Clotty I think he’s sadly mistaken. Clottey will have watched Cotto’s fight with Margarito many times by the time they meet this Saturday, and Joshua will obviously be doing his best Margarito imitation that he can do by trying to put a lot of pressure on Cotto for as long as possible.

I think that’s the wisest move for Clottey to take, because if he takes his time and paces himself, Cotto will pick him apart with his jabs and power shots and easily beat him. Clottey has a history of wearing down in his fights in the later rounds and in his most recent fights, he’s been trying to pace himself much more.

That won’t work against Cotto, and if Clottey opts to do that he’s going to lose badly. When you got a fighter that had been beaten up as badly as Cotto did by the powerful Margarito, you got to put hands on him and test his chin as much as possible. Clottey needs to go at Cotto as hard as he can early in the bout while Clottey still has his power and speed working for him.

If he waits until late in the fight, the power might not be there for him. If I was Clottey, I would put my foot the floor, and fight at 100% for as long as I can and focus entirely on throwing nothing but head shots. Clottey must forget all about throwing shots to Cotto’s body and go straight for his head and try to shake something up inside there.

I think Clottey can do it, but he’s going to need to put all his energy into his shots because he’s not nearly as big a puncher as Margarito and will need to use good form to get Cotto out of there.



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