Roach: We’ll set traps for Sergio, we’ll catch him

By Boxing News - 06/07/2014 - Comments

roach234By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach feels that he’s got the perfect plan for Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) to come out victorious tonight against WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s). And while most of the boxing world sees Sergio as being too big, too talented and too quick for the 5’7” Cotto, Roach says that he’s come up with a strategy for Cotto to be able to catch Martinez by luring him in.

Cotto is terrible at cutting off the ring, so as long as Martinez is moving, Cotto will struggle to land anything at all in the fight. But Roach has a way around that by having Cotto take advantage of Sergio’s aggression.

“We’ll set traps for him,” Roach said. “We’ll catch this guy.”

What this means is that we’ll likely see Cotto play possum at times in the fight by fighting passively so that Sergio’s natural aggressiveness will kick into overdrive to where he’ll go after Cotto to try and finish him off. It’s at that point we’ll see Cotto look to KO Martinez with a left hook to the head or body. It’s a good strategy for the most part, but the problem is that element of surprise will be lost if Cotto isn’t able to knock Martinez out the first couple of times he tries this trick.

Once Martinez realizes that Cotto is trying to set him up for shots by fighting passively, then we’ll see Martinez adapt to Cotto’s tricks by staying on the outside and jabbing him rather than looking to mix it up. I think Roach is confusing Sergio Martinez with Cotto’s last opponent Delvin Rodriguez, because Martinez isn’t going to fall for Cotto’s tricks more than once or twice.

Cotto doesn’t have the kind of one punch power needed for him to take Martinez out with a single shot, and that means we’re going to see Martinez responding to Roach’s tricks by opting to box Cotto’s head off and making him look bad.



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