By Dave Lahr: Although Miguel Cotto is still winning his fights, he didn’t exactly impress in his last fight against Joshua Clottey in June. There are people who feel that Cotto hasn’t been the same since being beaten by Antonio Margarito last year. To be sure, Cotto didn’t look like his old self in defeating Clottey by a 12 round split decision win. Cotto fought as if he was unsure of himself after getting cut by Clottey.
Some of that appeared to be Cotto being worried about the cut, but the other part looked as if Cotto was tiring out and on the verge of quitting.
Cotto didn’t quit and stuck it out, but it looked for like for a moment there that Cotto was ready to go out on his feet. With that in mind, it’s not exactly the best of timing that Cotto is facing an opponent as dangerous as Manny Pacquiao off of a performance like the last one.
Pacquiao is in the prime of his career and is looking better than he ever has. It would seem that Pacquiao are going in different directions right now. Cotto may be sinking at small angle, but he appears to be a bit on the downward slide.
Whether that was just a momentary appearance because of his tough fight with Clottey is unclear. But Cotto’s going to have to look more impressive than he did against Clottey if he wants to come out victorious against Pacquiao on November 14th.
Cotto will have to be prepared to fight his heart out if he wants to win this fight because he can’t afford to slip mentally in this fight or be concerned about a cut. If he gets cut, Cotto is going to have to be prepared to fight that much harder if he wants to win the fight. The good news is that Pacquiao doesn’t hit as hard as Margarito with every punch.
Pacquiao can punch plenty hard when he puts all his energy into his shots, but he can’t fire off one big shot after another with the same kind of power that Margarito can on a consistent basis without tiring out or leaving himself open. Cotto will have to be better at covering up and making sure that he doesn’t get nailed by Pacquiao’s right hooks and straight left hands.
Cotto likely won’t be able to change his stamina problems too much for his fight with Pacquiao. But Cotto can work on his defense and try to block some more shots. I don’t know that Cotto is a shot fighter, but I think he didn’t react well when he was taking punishment at the hands of Clottey in his last fight.
Cotto lucked out in a way in that fight because Clottey stopped punching as much in the later rounds and gave Cotto a break to get his act together. Pacquiao, for his part, probably won’t lessen up on his attacks and will keep Cotto under a constant level of pressure.
Freddie Roach will be able to detect whether Cotto is tiring in the later rounds and will give Pacquiao instructions to go after him. Pacquiao is quite adept at following instructions from his corner and will tirelessly follow whatever advice that Roach gives him. This is why Cotto will have to pace himself and cover up well so that Pacquiao can’t batter him to pieces late in the fight.
As for whether Cotto is shot or not. It’s still too early to tell. He’s certainly not fighting at the level he was before his loss to Margarito, I can say that much for him.
Source: boxingnews24.com
No comments:
Post a Comment