Steward could have egg on his face if Cotto gets beaten by Foreman

By Boxing News - 06/04/2010 - Comments

By Jason Kim: Trainer Emanuel Steward took a big risk in selecting Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO’s) to train rather than taller WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO’s). Steward appears to be gambling that the more popular, bigger punching Cotto will have more life left in his deteriorating boxing career rather than the still up and coming Foreman.

It could be a bad gamble for Steward if Cotto falls on his face on Saturday night and ends up getting stopped once again. As things are, Cotto has been taken out in two of his last four fights and not looked at good in most of these fights. Steward is accustomed to training mainly success stories and not fighters like Cotto who appear to be on their last leg.

In a way, Cotto doesn’t have things too bad going into this fight. I mean with a lot of boxing fans seeing him as pretty much shot, there won’t be as much pressure on Cotto as there normally would be with him fighting an unpopular fighter with zero power like Foreman. This is the ideal situation for Cotto. Nothing is expect of him, so if he doesn’t shine that much he still wins big with fans because many of them are expecting him to lose by knockout to Foreman.

But there is a lot of pressure on Steward because he’s been brought in to get results and if Cotto performs really badly, you can expect for a good portion of the blame to be heaped on Steward’s head. My guess is Steward won’t be invited back should Cotto get destroyed or dominated by Foreman on Saturday. I’m thinking Steward won’t be back even if Cotto loses a narrow, questionable decision to Foreman. Steward has to bring results or he’s going to be at risk for losing his position with Cotto.

Thankfully for Steward’s place, he has other fighters to fall back on if he loses the Cotto gig. Steward doesn’t think that Cotto is damaged goods and sees no problems with Cotto’s reflexes. Cotto’s reflexes aren’t being questioned by fans; it’s his ability to take punishment without cutting up, tiring and seeming to implode in the later rounds. In his defeats to Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao, Cotto’s reflexes looked more than fine. It’s just that he took too much punishment in both of those fights and got beaten up.

Cotto never really stopped attacking in either of the fights, but the problem for him is that he couldn’t take the punches from his opponents. This could be the same case against Foreman on Saturday night. Cotto will look fine early on but he could start to take a lot of punishment once the fight goes past the 6th and that’s where he could be in trouble against Foreman.

I have my doubts whether Steward can do much with Cotto, because he’s going to have to be able to take punishment regardless. It’s up to Cotto whether he can the shots without going down or busting up. Steward has no control over these matters. This is why I think he blew it by signing on with Cotto.



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