By John F. McKenna (McJack): There is no doubt that 31 year old World Boxing Association (WBA) light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) is a very good fighter in the lead up to his showdown with undefeated WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s). The fight will take place on May 5 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The Golden Boy Promotions hype machine is revved up in high gear in the hopes of making the masses of boxing fans believe that Cotto has a real chance to defeat Mayweather.
And while Miguel has fought his way back to championship status by becoming a WBA light middleweight titlist, doubts remain as to just how good Cotto is. Although he has recovered much of the confidence that Antonio Margarito took from him in July 2008, he will never be the fighter he was before the beat down Margarito administered to him.
It is true that Miguel was able to gain some measure of retribution when he forced a 10th round TKO stoppage of Antonio when the pair met in their long awaited rematch last December. But the Margarito of last December was but a shell of the fighter he was in July of 2008. After being battered around the ring for twelve rounds by Filipino dynamo WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and suffering a fractured orbital bone in his right eye in November 2010, Antonio was clearly damaged goods. For a time it appeared that Margarito would not be permitted to fight again due to his injury.
Cotto was able to easily come up with a game plan to stave off the one dimensional Margarito by moving side to side and taking target practice on his damaged eye. Predictably the ringside physicians were forced to intervene and stop the contest when Antonio’s eye became swollen and began to close.
Cotto against “Money” Mayweather must be vastly superior to what he was against Margarito. Miguel will be hard pressed to land anything meaningful against the defensive wizardry of Mayweather.
Floyd Mayweather is the consummate professional in the ring and as a professional he has done his homework well. Floyd goes through a meticulous selection process before engaging any opponent. Rest assured that before Mayweather ever agreed to fight Cotto, all doubts had already been removed from his mind as to how serious a threat he was to his “0”. Floyd’s speed and his defense will be way too much for Miguel to handle.
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