By Dan Ambrose: WBA Miguel Cotto’s trainer Pedro Diaz has the tough task ahead of him to try and put together the perfect plan for his fighter Cotto to try and beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 5th. Diaz is a great trainer but he can only do much.
Putting together a plan for a limited fighter like Cotto to beat a star like Mayweather is going to be pretty much impossible. I know Diaz has got great credentials in training the Cuban amateurs, but this is professional boxing, not the amateur ranks. And Mayweather has all the advantages in this fight. Diaz has a short slugger on his hands with skin problems. Even the best of Diaz’s plans won’t be able to keep Cotto from taking a lot of head shots and getting cut up.
Diaz really only has a couple of options available for putting together a plan for Cotto to defeat Mayweather. It’s either going to be the old usual Cotto stuff with him lowering his head like a little bull, jabbing his way inside and looking to throw body and head shots from close range OR Cotto moving around the ring to try and box Mayweather. Either one of those plans are doomed for failure.
Cotto isn’t going to out-box Mayweather and he’ll look silly if he tries. And he’s not going to be able to destroy Mayweather by bum rushing him in the way that Cotto used to fight. Mayweather specifically picked out Cotto because he was so easy to figure out with his old style of fighting. If Cotto goes back to the way he used to fight, he’s going to get clowned by Mayweather. If Cotto tries to box Mayweather, it’ll be too easy because Cotto moves around the ring like he’s got a set of weights attache to each angle. He’s really slow and sluggish.
Comments are closed.