Weekend Preview: Mayweather vs Cotto
by Gautham Nagesh
There aren’t too many hard-core boxing fans thrilled with tomorrow night’s Pay Per View card headlined by Floyd Mayweather vs Miguel Cotto. That’s because most fight fans wanted to see this fight five years ago, before Cotto suffered brutal beatings at the hands of Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. But Saturday night’s main event, which pits a battle-scarred Cotto against the still largely untouched Mayweather, features the two biggest draws in boxing not named Pacquiao. Which means it’s all anyone will be talking about in the fight world for the next 48 hours.
Few people give Cotto much of a shot to beat Floyd, and we’re no different. Miguel is a warrior, a boxer-puncher with good skills. But he’s in deep against the best defensive fighter since Pernell Whitaker, and no longer appears to have the speed or self-confidence to trouble Mayweather. Floyd is deadly accurate with his straight right hand, which should be there for the taking all night against the southpaw Cotto.[[MORE]]
Cotto’s best chance is to let Floyd come to him and try to land the left hook, his best punch. But Mayweather looked comfortable bringing the fight to Shane Mosley and we don’t expect tomorrow night to go much differently. If Cotto tries to box and move, he may avoid the early damage and last the full 12 rounds. Our guess is Floyd makes the fight early and builds up a lead on the scorecards. Cotto is too proud to run the whole night, so eventually he will stand and fight. That’s when Floyd’s right and left hook will put him down, likely around the 10th round.
The co-feature could end up even less sporting, as the badly shopworn Mosley takes on the young Mexican bull Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Canelo is still a bit raw, but he has more than enough power and youth to make short work of Mosley. The only real suspense is whether Mosley has enough left to rock the young man early; otherwise he could be facing the first stoppage loss of his career. Mayweather Promotions welterweight prospect Jessie Vargas will also showcase his skills against substitute Steve Forbes. The other televised fight matches veterans Carlos Quintana and Deandre Latimore at 154.
Houston native Jerren Cochran, now fighting out of Northern Virginia, emails to let us know he will be fighting Saturday night at Cowboy Dance Hall in San Antonio, Texas. The featherweight prospect impressed me during his last bout at Fight Night 2011 against veteran Jason Rorie. His opponent will be either Oscar Mejiah of Mexico or Jose Javier Guzman of Ft. Wayne, Ind., depending on whether you believe Cochran or the local paper. Main event matches local 140-lb prospect Ivan Najera against Tyler Ziolkowski for six rounds, followed by Mayweather-Cotto on the big screen.
ESPN moves Friday Night Fights to Saturday night this weekend to take advantage of the Mayweather-Cotto hype. The main event features 2008 Olympian Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade of Providence against Rudy Cisneros from Mohegan Sun.Andrade is a very sound technical fighter that doesn’t like to take risks, either inside the ring or with prospective opponents. He should handle Cisneros easily and continue his slow crawl up the junior middleweight ladder.
Fox Deportes has a Friday night show from Las Vegas featuring Daniel Ponce De Leon vs Eduardo Lazcano at 130 lbs. and Ishe Smith vs Ayi Bruce at 154….Promoter Jake Smith is holding another Baltimore vs Pittsburgh amateur card at Baltimore’s Du Burns Arena on Friday night after the success of the last show, which was almost a sell-out….Chris John defends his WBA 130-lb trinket Saturday in Singapore against Shoji Kimura…Quality German card on Saturday is headlined by Marco Huck vs Ola Afolabi for the WBO cruiserweight belt and Robert Stieglitz defending his WBO super middleweight belt against Nader Hamden…Kompayak Porpramook defends his WBC junior flyweight strap in Bangkok against Jonathan Taconing…former welterweight titlist DeMarcus “Chop Chop” Corley travels to Belfast to challenge local contender Paul McCloskey on Saturday.