Few People Giving Margarito a Chance Against Cotto

margarito654235.jpgBy 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.

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Margarito vs. Cotto: Will Miguel’s Chin Hold Up?

margarito46575.jpgBy Chris Williams: Welterweight Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) will be bringing it this Saturday night against Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs), hoping to take away his WBA welterweight crown and in the process removing the aura that surrounds Cotto and makes him seem unbeatable. It is doubtful that Margarito, 30, really knows what’s in store for him this Saturday against Cotto. He may have heard the hype, seen him fight a few times, but it’s going to be a whole different matter to have to actually go in the ring and face him. Cotto isn’t unbeatable, however, because he’s sometimes hurt in his fights, although never serious enough for him to lose. Looking back on his past fights, he’s done well to get by the bigger punchers he’s faced like Ricardo Torres, whom he was badly hurt against but recovered to eventually stop in the 7th round. Since moving up from the light welterweight division in

Up until this point in his seven-year boxing career, undefeated WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) has had the physical and offensive advantages over every one of his opponents, but this Saturday Cotto will finally meet a fighter in December 2006, Cotto has done well, defeating several good fighters in Zab Judah, Shane Mosley and Alfonso Gomez, and only getting stunned for a moment in his fight with Judah in June 2007.

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Cotto-Margarito: Has Miguel Bit off More Than He Can Chew?

cotto44572.jpgBy Dan Ambrose: Up until this point in his seven-year boxing career, undefeated WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) has had the physical and offensive advantages over every one of his opponents, but this Saturday Cotto will finally meet a fighter in Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) is superior to Cotto in every possible way – work rate, size, reach, chin and experience – with the exception of youth and power. There are a lot of things working against the young 27 year-old Cotto going into this bout, and regardless of the things that he’s accomplished up until now in beating mostly lesser fighters or fighters considered over the hill, it may do little to prepare him for what Margarito will be bringing to the ring on Saturday night.

Size: The size alone, with Margarito towering over Cotto by four inches and with a reach advantage of half a foot, will be huge obstacle for Cotto to get past. However, the height advantage might be minimized because Margarito tends to stand in close and loop many of his punches, not using his reach to his full benefit. But, when Margarito does choose to fight on the outside, Cotto, a fighter who tends to fight mostly on the inside, will likely find that he’s unable to get his big body shots nor land his excellent jab.

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Boxing: Cotto vs. Margarito

cotto457346.jpgBy Aaron Klein: In easily the biggest, toughest fight of his short boxing career WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) will be putting both his unbeaten record and title on the line against the punching machine Mexican Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) this Saturday night in a 12-round bout at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cotto, 27, a former light welterweight, is going up against one of the biggest welterweights he’s faced since moving up to the division in December 2006. Up to this point, Cotto has faced mostly smaller, less offensively skillful welterweights than Margarito, ones that he could either out-slug or out-out-punch on the inside.

However, he may need to find a new way to win if he plans on being successful against Margarito, who appears to be a level or two above the competition that Cotto has faced thus far since moving up to the welterweight division. That’s not a knock on fighters like Zab Judah, Shane Mosley, Oktay Urkal, Carlos Quintana or Alfonso Gomez, because each of them are good fighters, but as far as being in the same class as Margarito, they’re clearly not.

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Cotto vs. Margarito Failing To Generate Interest

cotto424222.jpgBy Manuel Perez: With the welterweight showdown between WBA champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) and challenger Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) only a week and half away, both the ticket sales and fans interest don’t appear to be there. The fight, which will be held at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, seems to be a poor location for the bout, being away from the East Coast, the area where Cotto’s huge Puerto Rican fan base is located, and California, perhaps where Margarito’s biggest fans come from.

Even with the fight being held in either of those two locations, however, it would be a fight that would still lack interest among the more casual of boxing fans, for few of them have ever heard of either of these two fighters. Though both of them have been around for a little while, for whatever reason neither of them are all that well known outside of the main boxing circles. If you doubt what I say, I suggest you speak to several people at your work or at school, and ask them if they’ve ever heard of Cotto or Margarito. I’d be willing to bet 9 times out of 10, few people have heard of either. Now, if you were to ask the same people if they’d ever heard of Oscar De La Hoya or Floyd Mayweather, most of them would probably say they had, especially with De La Hoya, a crossover star.

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Miguel Cotto – Antonio Margarito: Is Miguel Too Small To Compete With Antonio?

cotto4643522.jpgBy Manuel Perez: WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) easily faces the toughest fight of his seven year professional boxing career on July 26th against tough Mexican Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, as much success as Cotto has found in boxing career in which he’s beaten fighters like Shane Mosley (albeit by a controversial 12-round decision), Alfonso Gomez, Paulie Malignaggi, Zab Judah, Ricardo Torres, and Carlos Quintana, none of those fighters are in the same class as Margarito. This is the problem for Cotto, who is shorter by four inches than the 5’11” Margarito, and is also giving up six inches in reach to the Mexican.

This means that Cotto will be forced to try and make it an inside fight if he has any hope of winning the fight, and even under those circumstances, Cotto will have to pray that he can somehow hurt Margarito and take him out. Margarito is far too busy for Cotto to beat him by a 12-round decision unless he’s able to knock him down two or three times in the process. One knockdown likely won’t be enough to beat Margarito, because he’ll be unloading on Cotto with many more punches per round and will likely have a huge advantage in overall punches landed in every round of the fight.

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Antonio Margarito vs. Miguel Cotto: Can Miguel Stand Up To Antonio’s High Volume Offense?

margarito453455756.jpgBy Manuel Perez: In a recent interview, Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) made the outlandish prediction that he’d “knock Cotto out in 4,” which if you were to believe Margarito’s boast, it would seem to indicate that he plans on rolling over Cotto in a quick fashion. Knowing Margarito, he probably believes in just what he says, because he often makes predictions of this kind, telling the interviewer exactly what he’s going to do in a fight. He then goes out and does just what he said he was going to do.

I guess there’s no real mystery about what Margarito plans on doing in his July 26th title at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Margarito will do what he always does, namely to go directly after Cotto and try to bury him with punches, and take him out as fast as he can. If this were another fighter, someone like Paul Williams, for example, I’d doubt that Margarito could carry it off. However, in this case, I think he actually has the ammunition to make it happen. Cotto hasn’t ever fought a fighter with the same offensive capabilities as Margarito in terms of, size, power, chin and punch volume.

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Cotto vs. Margarito: To Settle Who’s The #2 Welterweight, Behind Mayweather

cotto4635335.jpgBy Manuel Perez: It isn’t often that boxing fans get to see a match-up as important or potentially as exciting as the July 26th title bout between unbeaten WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) and challenger Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Though both fighters like to say that this bout will decide which fighter is the number # 1 welterweight in the division, it’s clear to most boxing experts that WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still the number one guy in the division no matter who comes out the winner between Cotto and Margarito.

The problem with Mayweather, however, is that he’s not likely to fight Cotto or Margarito any time soon, if ever. That, sadly, leaves it to the fans and boxing writers to decide among themselves who the real number one fighter is in the division. At this point, it’s still Mayweather, as he still looks to be a level above Cotto or Margarito in terms of skills. That’s likely to change, though, in the next year or so, especially if Mayweather fails to take on anyone other than Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton.

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Mayweather-Cotto: A matter of time

mayweather45654631.jpgBy Shaun Brown: For many a fight fan, the prospect of boxing pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather facing Puerto Rico’s finest Miguel Cotto has been nothing but a dream for us all.

With Oscar De La Hoya (rematch) and Antonio Margarito lined up as their respective opponents, aligned with recent comments from Roger Mayweather: “If it makes dollars, it makes sense. We’ve got to wait and see how he looks vs Margarito to determine how big a fight between him and Floyd would be.” Do we dare start to believe that this dream could become a reality?

In all of this the Golden Boy himself, De La Hoya, will have a more integral part to play in the prospective meeting of the two than he would have dared to imagine. It’s all predictions at this point of course. Neither the ‘Pretty Boy’ or ‘Junito’ have spent much time during media calls calling one another out. Maybe they wont have to. If Mayweather Jnr defeats De La Hoya as expected and Cotto comes through the potential minefield that is Margarito, what route does either victor have left to go down except to face one another?

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Cotto vs. De La Hoya: Coming Soon?

cotto685757.jpgBy Nate Anderson: In a recent conference call interview, Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) didn’t rule out a fight with undefeated WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs). This would, of course, be taking place after De La Hoya’s fights with Steve Forbes, scheduled for May 3rd, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. on September 20th in Las Vegas. De La Hoya, now 35, would be looking for a bout with Cotto likely to take place in December. However, for such a fight to take place, a lot of things would have to come in line before it could happen.

For instance, Cotto is facing Antonio Margarito on July 26th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, and that’s a fight that Cotto will have a hard time winning given Margarito’s size, experience and punch output advantage over the smaller Cotto. As such, there’s a good chance that Cotto may end up losing to Margarito, which would wipe out De La Hoya’s plans, if he is at all serious, about wanting a fight with Cotto. Likewise, De La Hoya, an aging fight that is no longer nearly as dominating as he once was earlier in his career, has bouts against Forbes and Mayweather to deal with. First things first, Forbes, a smaller light welterweight for most of his career, still has a lot of skills, enough possibly to beat De La Hoya.

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