By Jason Kim: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 0 KO’s) supposedly have an agreement to fight after Mayweather faces WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto on May 5th.
But Mayweather could be making the mistake of looking past Cotto instead of focusing completely on this fight. Cotto is a real live dog in this fight and he’s got the power the work rate to get the better of Mayweather in their exchanges.
A lot of boxing fans felt that Mayweather dodged Cotto all these years due to the huge punching power, the high work rate and the excellent jab that Cotto has. Mayweather doesn’t have many advantages against Cotto in this fight.
Cotto has the better power, better inside game, better jab and he throws more punches than Mayweather. The last thing that Mayweather needed to be doing was looking past Cotto towards a fight against the young 21-year-old Alvarez for a fight that could take place late in 2012 or early 2013. Manny Pacquiao still figured into all of this, but it’s doubtful a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao can be made this year if at all.
Cotto will be ready for Mayweather and he’s got a lot of video of him to prepare for this fight. Mayweather’s flaws are well known at this point. His last two fights have shown that Mayweather doesn’t move a lot anymore and he doesn’t seem capable of throwing a lot of punches.
If Cotto can take the fight to him and stay composed if he misses some of his punches, he could end up outworking Mayweather to get a decision. It’s entirely possible, especially with Mayweather thinking about a fight against Alvarez later on in the year. Cotto is a really stronger puncher really didn’t experience that kind of thing in his last fight against Victor Ortiz. He might have if Ortiz didn’t go mental in the 4th round when things weren’t going his way.
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