Cotto: The “Golden” Opportunity

By Boxing News - 09/12/2009 - Comments

cotto23213231By Kevin Pasquale: Ahh, how the world of boxing can create magical storylines, indefatigable heroes, epic matchups, and misleading hype. To this last comment, I give you Pacquiao-Cotto. When watching HBO’s entertaining “24/7” the other night, starring Floyd “I’m Filthy Rich” Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez, I thought about Marquez’s last battle with Manny Pacquiao, in March of last year. I scored that fight eight rounds to four, in favor of the counter-punching Marquez, even though he hit the canvas in that fight.

Despite that setback, he throttled Manny at every turn, consistently providing answers for everything PacMan threw at him, to the point where everyone but the judges, and Pacquiao himself, knew Marquez was the better man. Or, maybe even Manny knew it.

But, here we are, 17 short months later, and all of Manny’s vulnerability has been completely forgotten amongst the tumbleweeds of victories over David Diaz (a solid performance by Pacquiao), a beatdown of a suddenly old, dry, and hapless Golden Boy, and a quick demolition of a washed up, weathered, overrated Ricky Hatton. And that has made Manny Pacquiao the 2nd coming. The best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. (Well, sort of, with Mayweather lacing them up again to regain that mythical crown.)

With that last statement sounding quite derisive of Pacquiao, let me make myself clear: I love watching Pacquiao fight, and consider him the best action fighter in the game today. His first classic battle with Eric Morales, and the two subsequent beatings he gave Morales, are just samples of his dynamic talent.

With that being said, we go to the other corner: Miguel Cotto.

If Pacquiao is the new Chosen One, then Cotto is the fallen warrior, the sullen beast of a fighter still trying to shake off the shrapnel of one ugly, brutal defeat. Enter Antonio Margarito, known unflatteringly as “Marga-cheato” by many, due to his now infamous episode when he was caught getting his hands wrapped before his fight with Shane Mosley, with of all things, plaster of paris. BRICKS. CEMENT. We all know what happened once that wrong was righted, and Margarito got in the ring with Mosley.

Going into his fight with Margarito, Cotto was boxing’s shining star, the welterweight battering ram with speed, agility, and boxing skills to match, along with a body punching arsenal that had crippled many an opponent into submission. But all of that invincibility crumbled that July evening, along with much of Cotto’s face. But even with the very real possibility that Cotto was beaten, BRUTALIZED, by a man that fateful night, who was throwing punches made of concrete, Cotto has carried with him, ever since, the reputation of a quitter, a fighter with questionable conditioning, and a fighter who is prone to fade late in fights.

So what did Miguel do? He gathered himself together, handled the Margarito cheating scandal in stride, tuned himself up with a beatdown of Michael Jennings seven months later, and did what Miguel Cotto does. He took on a lethal bull of a fighter, Joshua Clottey, and beat Clottey, with his trademark aggressiveness, and showed that he had shaken off the Margarito fight, by taking Clottey’s best shots, and battled through them, and an ugly cut, to survive, and win by a narrow margin.

We fast forward to November 14th. Cotto has defeated yet another formidable enemy, his former trainer and uncle, Evangelista, and has a new trainer, Joe Santiago, and has everything in the world to fight for. This is his defining fight, the fight that will either restore him to glory, or bury him in the annals of once great fighters who inevitably fade, and hang on the fringes of the sport. Manny Pacquiao is Cotto’s one shot at redemption. Again, do not mistake my praising of Cotto as a lack of respect for PacMan’s skills. But, as some notable fighters have mentioned of late, (Roy Jones Jr., and Paulie Maliganggi, who has himself been in the square ring with Cotto) this will be a time when size matters, when Manny will walk into the ring against the biggest, strongest opponent he has ever faced, an opponent who can hurt him, and outslug him.

Pacquiao has fought just two fights north of 140 pounds, against 2 formerly great fighters, who stepped in against Manny as shriveling shells of themselves. Pacquiao will be facing a 28-year old Cotto, a man still in his prime, a fighter who is a strong, solid, brutal 145 pounds, and has fought 17 fights at, or above, 140 pounds. And, odds are that he will weigh well over that weight come fight night, unlike De La Hoya, who was a skeletal 145 the night he laced them up against Manny.

Undoubtedly, Freddie Roach will have a pragmatical fight plan for Manny, the wise tactician he is. He knows his fighter can’t come rushing helter-skelter at Cotto without suffering dearly for it. Or does he? That game plan will be the deciding factor in whether Manny makes it into the later rounds with Cotto, or if he hits the canvas with a thud, and goes down for the count, like so many of his opponents have. Let’s Get Ready To…well, you know the rest.



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