Cotto’s skin may not hold up long against Mayweather

By Boxing News - 03/10/2012 - Comments

Image: Cotto's skin may not hold up long against MayweatherBy Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) faces his first non-injured and/or old fighter in his the past three years when he faces undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the D-Day for Cotto, as he’s finally being put in with quality after two years of easy pickings given to him by his promoter Bob Arum at Top Rank. Cotto is going to be hit a lot more in this fight that he has since he took a beating by Manny Pacquiao in November 2009.

My concern for Cotto is his scar tissue around his eyes. He’s got a lot of old scars there and his skin seems to tear quite easily even when getting hit in other non-previously cut areas around his yes. Mayweather is going to be hitting Cotto all night long with lancing shots and it’s going to be a really difficult for Cotto’s skin to stay together that kind of pounding.

If you look at the fights in which Cotto has been cut, he tends to back up in retreat move when he sees his own blood. He seems to panic and fall apart mentally when the blood starts coming down his face. This is bad because he’s going to need to have a level head against Mayweather, because the odds are so high that Cotto will be cut. If his trainer is doing a good job, he’ll have warned Cotto about the high probability that he’ll be bleeding like a stuck pig by the 6th round, and may be fighting nearly blind due to blood in his eyes by the 8th. A good trainer will take Cotto through the scenario and get him ready for a backup plan to use when he has poor visibility out of his eyes.



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