By Stanley White: Sadam Ali (25-1, 14 KOs) has the full attention of Puerto Rican star Miguel Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs) for their fight this Saturday night, according to trainer Freddie Roach. He’s concerned with the youth and boxing skills of the 29-year-old Ali.
Roach doesn’t want Cotto to be taken by surprise.
Cotto hasn’t lost a fight since his defeat to Saul Canelo Alvarez in 2015, but he also hasn’t faced a good fighter since then. Cotto has fought only once in 2 years and that was against Yoshihiro Kamegai. Ali is clearly better than Kamegai, but he lacks the punching power and the ruggedness of the Japanese fighter. Ali will need to use youth, speed and mobility to get past Cotto on Saturday. He’s not going to be able to trade power shots with Cotto for any length of time without getting hurt.
“When you have a younger guys coming up fighting an older fighter it’s very difficult,” said Roach. That’s why we’re training so hard for this fight. We’re going against the younger generation and [Sadam Ali] can box. We’re taking this fight very seriously.”
This is the biggest fight of Sadam Ali’s career by far. This is a very big deal for him. Ali is from Brooklyn, New York, so he’ll be fighting in front of his friends and family on Saturday night. Ali is going to be at his very best when he gets inside the ring with Cotto. If Roach doesn’t have the 37-year-old Cotto in top form, he could end his career with an embarrassing loss.
It would be more embarrassing because Ali isn’t considered one of the A-level welterweights. He’s a B-level fighter, who was recently exposed last year by Jessie Vargas in losing by a 9th round knockout. Ali was never in that fight. Vargas dominated Ali from start to finish with his power shots.
“When you mix generations like this things change,” said Roach in continuing to talk about the older Cotto fighting the younger Ali.
Cotto might not have the speed or the sharpness of a younger fighter, but he does have the power advantage over Ali. That means a lot. Cotto also has the experience. Ali has only fought 1 good fighter during his career, and he lost to the guy in getting beaten by Jessie Vargas. Cotto has fought much better fighters than Vargas during his career, and he’s beaten many of them. So unless Cotto has gotten old overnight since his win over Kamegai, he’ll have a good chance of beating Ali.
“I don’t think I’ll cry! But I will miss [Miguel Cotto] for sure. The worst thing is me and him on the phone isn’t too good. We’re both quiet and shy people,” said Roach. “I’d rate Miguel Cotto as the best [Puerto Rican boxer] of all time but people have opinions but I also like Wilfredo Gomez!”
Wilfredo Gomez (44-3-1, 42 KOs) was a more devastating puncher than Cotto for his weight class at super bantamweight. I don’t think you can compare the two. Gomez was dominant as a champion for a 6-year period until moving up to featherweight to fight Salvador Sanchez and suffering his first defeat of his career in getting stopped in the 8th. After that loss, Gomez went back down to 122 and didn’t lose another fight for 3 years. Cotto wasn’t that type of talent. He was more of a guy that did well against the good fighters, but then he would lose to the really good guys.
