Miguel Cotto can separate himself from the pack - and maybe even from the Pac-Man - on July 26. All he has to do is separate Antonio Margarito from his senses.
With the retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr., the undefeated WBO champion ascended to the top of every list of the world's best welterweights and moved closer to the top of the pound-for-pound rankings Mayweather ruled for so long. The top slot in the latter is primarily occupied now, in the opinion of most observers, by Manny Pacquiao, the recently crowned WBC lightweight champion who has won world titles in four weight classes and who is certainly considered among the most exciting fighters in the world as well as one of the most devastating punchers.
Where that leaves Cotto (32-0, 26 KO) is right where he chose to be - which is in the ring with arguably the most dangerous welterweight in the world...other than himself. This is a choice Cotto did not have to make but welcomed because that is how he looks at his job. He is not simply a boxer. He is a fighter desperate to prove where he fits in the sport's hierarchy, a desire that has become too rare a commodity these days in boxing.
Margarito had just won the IBF title last April underneath Cotto's one-sided destruction of Alfonso Gomez, and there was much agitating for the two of them to meet. But Cotto held all the cards, especially after the unexpected retirement of Mayweather. He was free to do what he wanted, and there was little Margarito could do about it. But what he wanted to do was exactly what boxing needed - square off with the welterweight who posed the greatest risk to his future.
That man is Antonio Margarito, a long-limbed Mexican who is aggressive to a fault and as sure of himself as a man can be. Mayweather was accused of avoiding his challenge after winning welterweight titles from Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir, and Cotto was well aware of it. Instead of facing either Margarito or Cotto, Mayweather elected instead to fight Oscar De La Hoya at 154 pounds, and then Ricky Hatton, a blown up 140 pounder, in what was called a welterweight title fight but really was the farthest thing from it. Hatton had already proven in an earlier welterweight encounter with light-hitting Luis Collazo that he had not carried his punch or his strength with him up to 147 pounds.
Contrast that with Cotto's decisions to face Judah and then Shane Mosley in back-to-back fights after winning the WBA version of the 147-pound title from Carlos Quintana and then defending it against Oktay Urkal. If Cotto goes on to defeat Margarito at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, he will have beaten four of RING ****zine's top five welterweights and three of ESPN.com's top four (leaving himself out of those ratings of course) in less than two years.
That might still leave open the debate over who is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world because there are strong advocates for Pacquiao, Joe Calzaghe and even Juan Manuel Marquez. But if Cotto can rid the ring of the iron-chinned Mexican challenger inside the distance, a fate Margarito has yet to face because his technical decision loss on a cut caused by an accidental head butt against Daniel Santos hardly qualifies, he would have made a statement of his supremacy that few could really quarrel with.
Highly respectful of his opponents and not prone to self-promotion until the fight actually starts, Cotto has made only one boast: Anyone who missed the Vegas fireworks displays on the Fourth of July will get a second chance to catch some explosions three weeks later.
"When you have two fighters, who are two warriors, you're going to see a real battle," Cotto said during the pre-fight press tour in New York. "I think this is going to be a huge time for boxing."
So does promoter Bob Arum, who has carefully brought Cotto along since his professional infancy. Arum also took over Margarito later in his career and quickly resurrected him after he was upset by Paul Williams a year ago. The fight cost Margarito the WBO title but taught him a stern lesson about the need to pick up his pace early in fights against quality opponents.
Margarito (36-5, 26 KO) has been a different, and more aggressive, fighter since but neither Golden Johnson nor Kermit Cintron belongs in the same conversation (or the same ring) with Cotto. That is a distinction Margarito will have to find ways to deal with. Although everyone in boxing believes he will at some point in the fight ask some stiff chin questions of Cotto, most concede that the superior boxer and the superior fighter is the 27-year-old Puerto Rican wunderkind.
"I like Cotto," former undisputed junior middleweight champion Winky Wright told the Puerto Rican newspaper Primera Hora. "He is a very complete boxer. Margarito is a great puncher with size, but Cotto can do a lot of things.
"He can box a lot more, and he also hits hard so I expect to see Cotto leave with the victory. Cotto's one of the best fighters out there. It's difficult to say who is the best boxer in the world, pound-for-pound, but he's one of them."
He is also someone who has been shrouded in an odd sense of foreboding despite having never been beaten, a result of having been wobbled by DeMarcus "Chop Chop" Corley and Judah and knocked down by Ricardo Torres in a junior lightweight title fight three years ago. It is fair to conclude that Cotto has vulnerabilities. Against someone who is as relentlessly offensive as Margarito, they could become a problem of some significance.
Yet every time Cotto (32-0, 26 KO) has been hurt, he has come back and destroyed his opponent, stopping Corley in five rounds, Torres in seven and Judah in the 11th after administering what became a savage beating. One has to wonder whether he is really at risk against Margarito, or will he become the beneficiary of the challenger's constant pressure, a tactic that will leave him often open to the quick hands and cruel body shots that have become Cotto's trademark?
"Cotto is always dangerous," insists Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward. "Floyd is the most talented welterweight in the world, but Cotto is the most admirable. He's a guy who always finds a way to win. We've never seen Floyd in the kind of adversity we've seen Cotto in, and that's not Floyd's fault. But what it tells you is that Cotto has a tremendous survival instinct.
"If things get too hot, he can dance away and box. He can be a boxing machine if he has to be, but if he has to be an aggressive fighting machine he can do that too. And that's what he prefers.
"He can adjust to whatever he has to adjust to and find a way to win. Cotto fought the best guys at 140 pounds. He got knocked down. He was staggered. He was cut. But he found ways to win. He's fought more of the top guys at 147 than anyone else with the same results. He wins.
"The guy endures. He beats you down. He is relentless in the way [Marvin] Hagler was relentless, and he damages you in the same way Hagler damaged people."
Hagler was not a one-punch knockout artist but rather a surgical assassin who would beat men up round after punishing round before he finally broke them down. Often he would cut them up as well in the process. Cotto has the same approach to his job, which is why this figures to be one of the best fights of the year.
Margarito is like-minded and often a whirlwind of relentlessness as well as the possessor of as solid a chin as one could imagine. It's impossible to come up with a scenario where the two of them don't attack each other often in the savagely beautiful way advocates of the sport hope for but do not see often enough any more. "He won't have to look for me," Margarito has promised. "I'll be looking for him."
Miguel Cotto, meanwhile, will be looking for opportunities. Opportunities to control the fight's pace with his superior jab. Opportunities to use his clear edge in movement, technical boxing skill and inventive adaptability to frustrate and punish Margarito when he tries to attack him. Opportunities, in the end, to hurt him, which is really why Miguel Cotto comes to the arena.
Antonio Margarito is there for the same reason so when the dust settles late on the evening of July 26 if Cotto has his hand raised in victory for the 33rd consecutive time he will be a welterweight without peer and a proven commodity.
If it is raised at the expense of an unconscious or semi-conscious Antonio Margarito, however, he will be more than that. He will very possibly be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
With the retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr., the undefeated WBO champion ascended to the top of every list of the world's best welterweights and moved closer to the top of the pound-for-pound rankings Mayweather ruled for so long. The top slot in the latter is primarily occupied now, in the opinion of most observers, by Manny Pacquiao, the recently crowned WBC lightweight champion who has won world titles in four weight classes and who is certainly considered among the most exciting fighters in the world as well as one of the most devastating punchers.
Where that leaves Cotto (32-0, 26 KO) is right where he chose to be - which is in the ring with arguably the most dangerous welterweight in the world...other than himself. This is a choice Cotto did not have to make but welcomed because that is how he looks at his job. He is not simply a boxer. He is a fighter desperate to prove where he fits in the sport's hierarchy, a desire that has become too rare a commodity these days in boxing.
Margarito had just won the IBF title last April underneath Cotto's one-sided destruction of Alfonso Gomez, and there was much agitating for the two of them to meet. But Cotto held all the cards, especially after the unexpected retirement of Mayweather. He was free to do what he wanted, and there was little Margarito could do about it. But what he wanted to do was exactly what boxing needed - square off with the welterweight who posed the greatest risk to his future.
That man is Antonio Margarito, a long-limbed Mexican who is aggressive to a fault and as sure of himself as a man can be. Mayweather was accused of avoiding his challenge after winning welterweight titles from Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir, and Cotto was well aware of it. Instead of facing either Margarito or Cotto, Mayweather elected instead to fight Oscar De La Hoya at 154 pounds, and then Ricky Hatton, a blown up 140 pounder, in what was called a welterweight title fight but really was the farthest thing from it. Hatton had already proven in an earlier welterweight encounter with light-hitting Luis Collazo that he had not carried his punch or his strength with him up to 147 pounds.
Contrast that with Cotto's decisions to face Judah and then Shane Mosley in back-to-back fights after winning the WBA version of the 147-pound title from Carlos Quintana and then defending it against Oktay Urkal. If Cotto goes on to defeat Margarito at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, he will have beaten four of RING ****zine's top five welterweights and three of ESPN.com's top four (leaving himself out of those ratings of course) in less than two years.
That might still leave open the debate over who is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world because there are strong advocates for Pacquiao, Joe Calzaghe and even Juan Manuel Marquez. But if Cotto can rid the ring of the iron-chinned Mexican challenger inside the distance, a fate Margarito has yet to face because his technical decision loss on a cut caused by an accidental head butt against Daniel Santos hardly qualifies, he would have made a statement of his supremacy that few could really quarrel with.
Highly respectful of his opponents and not prone to self-promotion until the fight actually starts, Cotto has made only one boast: Anyone who missed the Vegas fireworks displays on the Fourth of July will get a second chance to catch some explosions three weeks later.
"When you have two fighters, who are two warriors, you're going to see a real battle," Cotto said during the pre-fight press tour in New York. "I think this is going to be a huge time for boxing."
So does promoter Bob Arum, who has carefully brought Cotto along since his professional infancy. Arum also took over Margarito later in his career and quickly resurrected him after he was upset by Paul Williams a year ago. The fight cost Margarito the WBO title but taught him a stern lesson about the need to pick up his pace early in fights against quality opponents.
Margarito (36-5, 26 KO) has been a different, and more aggressive, fighter since but neither Golden Johnson nor Kermit Cintron belongs in the same conversation (or the same ring) with Cotto. That is a distinction Margarito will have to find ways to deal with. Although everyone in boxing believes he will at some point in the fight ask some stiff chin questions of Cotto, most concede that the superior boxer and the superior fighter is the 27-year-old Puerto Rican wunderkind.
"I like Cotto," former undisputed junior middleweight champion Winky Wright told the Puerto Rican newspaper Primera Hora. "He is a very complete boxer. Margarito is a great puncher with size, but Cotto can do a lot of things.
"He can box a lot more, and he also hits hard so I expect to see Cotto leave with the victory. Cotto's one of the best fighters out there. It's difficult to say who is the best boxer in the world, pound-for-pound, but he's one of them."
He is also someone who has been shrouded in an odd sense of foreboding despite having never been beaten, a result of having been wobbled by DeMarcus "Chop Chop" Corley and Judah and knocked down by Ricardo Torres in a junior lightweight title fight three years ago. It is fair to conclude that Cotto has vulnerabilities. Against someone who is as relentlessly offensive as Margarito, they could become a problem of some significance.
Yet every time Cotto (32-0, 26 KO) has been hurt, he has come back and destroyed his opponent, stopping Corley in five rounds, Torres in seven and Judah in the 11th after administering what became a savage beating. One has to wonder whether he is really at risk against Margarito, or will he become the beneficiary of the challenger's constant pressure, a tactic that will leave him often open to the quick hands and cruel body shots that have become Cotto's trademark?
"Cotto is always dangerous," insists Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward. "Floyd is the most talented welterweight in the world, but Cotto is the most admirable. He's a guy who always finds a way to win. We've never seen Floyd in the kind of adversity we've seen Cotto in, and that's not Floyd's fault. But what it tells you is that Cotto has a tremendous survival instinct.
"If things get too hot, he can dance away and box. He can be a boxing machine if he has to be, but if he has to be an aggressive fighting machine he can do that too. And that's what he prefers.
"He can adjust to whatever he has to adjust to and find a way to win. Cotto fought the best guys at 140 pounds. He got knocked down. He was staggered. He was cut. But he found ways to win. He's fought more of the top guys at 147 than anyone else with the same results. He wins.
"The guy endures. He beats you down. He is relentless in the way [Marvin] Hagler was relentless, and he damages you in the same way Hagler damaged people."
Hagler was not a one-punch knockout artist but rather a surgical assassin who would beat men up round after punishing round before he finally broke them down. Often he would cut them up as well in the process. Cotto has the same approach to his job, which is why this figures to be one of the best fights of the year.
Margarito is like-minded and often a whirlwind of relentlessness as well as the possessor of as solid a chin as one could imagine. It's impossible to come up with a scenario where the two of them don't attack each other often in the savagely beautiful way advocates of the sport hope for but do not see often enough any more. "He won't have to look for me," Margarito has promised. "I'll be looking for him."
Miguel Cotto, meanwhile, will be looking for opportunities. Opportunities to control the fight's pace with his superior jab. Opportunities to use his clear edge in movement, technical boxing skill and inventive adaptability to frustrate and punish Margarito when he tries to attack him. Opportunities, in the end, to hurt him, which is really why Miguel Cotto comes to the arena.
Antonio Margarito is there for the same reason so when the dust settles late on the evening of July 26 if Cotto has his hand raised in victory for the 33rd consecutive time he will be a welterweight without peer and a proven commodity.
If it is raised at the expense of an unconscious or semi-conscious Antonio Margarito, however, he will be more than that. He will very possibly be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Pacquiao got everything that was going to be his. The De La Hoya Fight, the P4P crown and the respect of the boxing people.
Nov 14 is not just buissines for Cotto is personal
Comment