By Dan Ambrose: After two consecutive years of benefiting from the soft matchmaking from his former promoter Bob Arum, WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) will finally be stepping out into the real world to defend his title against arguably the best fighter he’s ever faced before in unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Cotto has looked really basic in his last few fights against Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman and Antonio Margarito and it’s hard to see Cotto raising his game from those performances to beat a fighter in the class of Mayweather. You can’t rule out the possibility of Cotto getting a victory due to his punching power, but he’d have to probably score a knockout to win.
Cotto was making good in roads with trainer Emanuel Steward recently, but then switched to another trainer for his last bout against Margarito. It didn’t matter because Margarito’s surgically repaired right eye was so messed up that it closed almost immediately, allowing Cotto to win the fight when the referee halted the bout after the 9th due to Margarito’s eye being nearly completely closed.
Mayweather isn’t Mayorga, Foreman and Margarito. He’s fighting at a much higher level and I can’t see Cotto doing well at all against him. I’m sure Cotto’s trainer will come up with some kind of tricks, but I’m extremely doubtful of the success of these tactics. Movement worked against the limited Margarito, but Cotto was still taking a pounding in the 9th round of their rematch. Cotto can’t beat a fighter like Mayweather with movement because of Mayweather’s accurate punching. The only thing Cotto will accomplish by moving around the ring is forestalling the inevitable by staying out of range of most of Mayweather’s shots. At the same time it’ll only end up tiring out Cotto himself by lessening the power on his shots. He’s much better off fighting flat footed and using very little movement to maximize his power. If he’s going to lose he might as well go down swinging with full power than running around the ring exhausting himself.
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