By Manuel Perez: As the saying goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” That may be even more true in terms of this Saturday night’s bout between challenger Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) and WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. By an avalanche of opinion, most boxing fans, betters and writers are choosing Cotto, 27, to defeat Margarito. The reason for their choice is varied, having to do mostly with Cotto’s recent development of boxing skills – a jab, better movement and the use of strategy rather than his old style of slugging – as the primary reason why they feel that Cotto will defeat Margarito.
Most of them doubt that Cotto can even come close to matching Margarito punch for punch, but they seem to feel that Cotto will be able to keep from getting hit enough to win the fight by a decision or possibly a knockout. The general consensus is that Cotto won’t be able to hurt Margarito with a shot to the head, and will have to focus on landing a hard body shot in order to drop or take out Margarito.