Quote Originally Posted by Lyle View Post
I have boxed before thank you very much.

De la Hoya and all the rest of the fighters you mentioned wanted to work through Floyd's defense....Miguel Cotto is not going to do that.

When I say "work through the defense" I mean find openings and set up your punches like any normal fighter and any normal fight. The thing is Floyd isn't any normal fighter and when you're fighting him it's not going to be any normal fight. Miguel Cotto is going to hit Floyd Mayweather Jr. where ever he wants to AND it's going to hurt.

No De la Hoya isn't a dirty fighter and it did come back to kind of hurt him...people want Floyd to sit still or stop throwing punches so they can hit him...that is where the timing comes into play and Floyd like any fighter has tendencies and things he likes to do and it's up to Cotto to figure out how to make him pay for those tendencies.


As for Margarito he's tall, he fights short...it's never a positive thing to do to give up your height. He has long arms and he likes fighting on the inside....when is that good to do? What good is being 5'11 vs a shorter fighter if you're not going to use it. As for Margarito's defense he likes to have his hands straight up and down and a little bit apart...when you're in a crouch and you have a guard like that what punch would YOU throw against him? UPPERCUT especially if he's coming forward! You throw that land effectively and his arms close up a little bit to try and stop you and then it's time for the left hook to start landing.

Sure Cotto is going to have to bring his defensive 'A game' but his defense has shown to be more effective than Margarito's....correct me if I'm wrong but Cotto has shown what a good boxer he is in his last couple of fights. And he can move and use defense to block punches, his cross blocking is perfect to block any uppercuts. And vs uppercuts you can counter a number of ways but look at Ali-Frazier I, the knockdown was an Uppercut vs a Hook and the hook landed first, it was a different fight and a different style matchup BUT YES the hook can counter the uppercut.

But hey that's just my opinion, if you want to be an asshole and bring things up like "I am getting the feeling you have never boxed before" then fine but I believe everything I have listed gives a good account of the style matchup everyone can expect. You go ahead and tell me where I am wrong but I swear I'll be right in someone else's opinion and you'll be right in another because very few things are concrete in boxing when it comes to strategy, it's like rock, paper, scissors...something always balances another thing out. I am just giving my opinion...so don't be a dick
I am not trying to an asshole about the boxing thing, but in the gym you find pretty quickly that how Cotto holds his hands(beside his head) he eats uppercuts all day, Mosley when he threw the few he did landed them, Judah landed them when he threw them, even Gomez landed an uppercut or two in their fight even though he couldn't land anything else Torrest ripped Cotto a new one with uppercuts. That IMO is the only punch that really lands on Cotto effectively because the right hand over top is usually hitting his glove, and or the top of his head which doesn't really hurt, and only really skilled boxers can time it so they hit Cotto just as he's throwing his punches, Mosley was able to do that, but I doubt Margarito has the skill to do this.

AS for Mayweather vs Cotto what is Cotto going to do if he isn't going to work through Mayweather's defense? Hatton had a unique ability to land punches as well, also was a good body puncher, and Mayweather totally limited Hatton's connect % to only 18. Both Oscar and Hatton had way more footspeed than Cotto which allowed them to keep Floyd against the ropes.
Now where it gets interesting is Mayweather is able to avoid punches no matter who he is fighting he figures how to avoid being hit very often. Judah was hitting him early with 57% of his powerpunches, but by the end it was down to 29%, and in the last round he missed almost every power punch he threw. I think earlier on Mayweather needed to get used to Judah's speed and the fact Mayweather was closing the distance when usually its the other fighter.
Now what makes this interesting is that Cotto has been able to land solid shots on everyone he has faced. He has faced slick fighters in Judah, Malignaggi, and Mosley(sort of), and he has been able to hit them all early. Now none of these guys are particularly great defensively though Mosley used to have a lot better defense when he was younger, Judah doesn't switch up his defense so its easy to figure him out because he doesn't use a lot of head movement, and he never really brought his right hand up to block Cotto's jab. Maglinaggi probably had the best defense of all three of them at this point in their careers and Cotto hit him easily. However Mayweather is a whole other story, he is the only one who has better timing than Cotto, and speed, and didn't crack under the pressure(like Judah who had the other two components). Mayweather loves going backwards unlike two of these three fighters, and Paulie fought aggressively against Cotto because, I assume, of the early cut. This leads me to believe Mayweather who has faced a lot more good offensive fighters will find a way to negate Cotto's offense, because while Cotto has one of the best offenses today Mayweather has one of the three best defenses ever(along with Pep and Whitaker)