Cotto-Margarito: Look for Miguel to take a knee to get out of the fight when the going gets tough

By Boxing News - 11/23/2011 - Comments

Image: Cotto-Margarito: Look for Miguel to take a knee to get out of the fight when the going gets toughBy Dan Ambrose: I’m really looking for a good fight between WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KO’s) and Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) on December 3rd, but I’m thinking this fight will be marred by Cotto taking the easy way out when his thin skin starts to break up around his face from the hard shots from the tough Mexican warrior.

I see this as a basic repeat of their first fight three years ago with Cotto leading the way in the first half of the fight, then running out of gas in the second half and ending with Cotto taking a knee or two to get out of the fight when he starts bleeding badly from cuts. We saw that before and we saw how poorly Cotto fought when he was cut up in the Joshua Clottey fight.

I see the same thing happening here. Cotto is a good front runner in the early rounds, but when his opponents put a lot of pressure on him in the second half of fights, Cotto struggles badly. His conditioning falls apart around the same time his tender paper like skin starts to crumble to pieces.

It’s weird the way Cotto’s skin tears and swells up, making him look as if he’s fought an old fashioned 15 round bout instead of falling apart by the 10th. His skin is just too tender for his own good, and his conditioning has never good and still isn’t.

I know his former trainer Emanuel Steward changed his game a little to make him more of a mover, but he really didn’t prove that he can be successful with that style against a good opponent because Cotto has been matched so softly since 2009. I do know he looked terrible in the Yuri Foreman fight after the 4th round and was getting lit up until Foreman’s bad right knee collapsed from under him in the 7th. Cotto was able to dominate a one-legged fighter after that, but he sure looked terrible before that.

Look for Cotto to take the easy way out by the 9th round against Margarito and drop to one or both knees to escape punishment. Margarito won’t stop coming forward and pressuring Cotto for an instant and he’s going to sap the strength right out of Cotto’s body on December 3rd like a giant energy sucking vacuum cleaner. Cotto will probably be bleeding like no tomorrow and will gladly drop to one knee to save his hide from taking any more punishment.



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