Sergio Martinez expects to KO Miguel Cotto before 9th round

By Boxing News - 03/10/2014 - Comments

cotto(Photo credit: Chris Farina/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) will be fighting a smaller guy in Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) on June 7th in their catch-weight fight at 159 lbs at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York, USA. The two fighters met on Monday in a press conference at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico to discuss the fight. What was surprising about the two fighters was how much bigger Sergio was compared to the 5’7″ Cotto.

Sergio looked considerably larger, and that’s something that wasn’t lost on him. He noticed how small Cotto was, and he figures that he won’t be standing by the 9th round when the two of them meet up in three months at MSG.

“This will be the first challenge that I have against someone who is smaller than me for many years,” Sergio said via RingTV. “But Miguel Cotto will be sleeping before the 9th round. the fight will be a knockout before the 9th.”

I like Cotto a lot as a fighter, but it looks like he’s in for another knockout loss unless Sergio tears up one of his knees or breaks a hand. Barring any kind of serious injury for Sergio, he’s going to dominate the smaller Cotto and take him out well before the 9th round. I just hope Cotto goes out in the traditional fashion rather than him taking a knee like he did in his first fight against Antonio Margarito. I don’t like the idea of Cotto taking a knee in losing.

Sergio is correct about him not having faced someone as small as Cotto in many years. In his last two fights, Sergio has fought two really big middleweights in Martin Murray and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Murray was like a light heavyweight in size the night that he fought him last year in April, and Chavez Jr. was a cruiserweight in size. You can’t really fault Sergio for suffering injuries in both of those fights because those guys were so huge by the time they rehydrated to face him in the ring.

Cotto will likely be close to 170 after he rehydrates, but Sergio will be able to deal with him a lot easier than Chavez Jr. and Murray because Cotto doesn’t have the height, reach or the punching power that those guys have. Cotto is more like a light welterweight that ate his way to the junior middleweight division. He’s not a middleweight, even though he’ll weigh more than a middleweight when he meets up with Sergio in June.

Sergio is the much better boxer of the two, and he’s going to pepper Cotto from the outside and keep him from throwing his hooks. Cotto’s got a new trainer in Freddie Roach, who believes that Cotto has rejuvenated himself due to his use of his left hook. The truth is Cotto hasn’t done anything to turn back the hands of time. He’s still the same guy that Margarito, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. all beat. The only difference is that Cotto was matched up with a fringe contender in his last fight against Delvin Rodriguez, and he made him look better than he actually is.



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