Quote Originally Posted by LeftHookToTheBody

Quote Originally Posted by uwey
Margarito is dangerous man, especially to Cotto. I think he gives PW a serioius beating if they ever rematch. He just gave those early rounds away, and he could never make it up.
Abosolute nonsense. Margarito did not give anything away...Williams neutralized Tony's offense with his activity and physical advantages and simply did not give Tony a chance to do anything early on. The ONLY reason Margarito did better later in the fight is because Williams high activity style makes a certain level of fatigue a given later on. That gave Tony more opportunities to get punches off, but even then the only rounds he really won CLEARLY were the 10th and 11th when Tony threw everything but the kitchen sink at Williams. The problem is that that constant activity gassed him and Williams took the 12th easily. Same thing would happen in the rematch. Williams would dominate the first half, Margarito would make a late push but Paul would close out stronger and take a clear decision. This nonsense that Margarito "gave away" the early rounds is just that...nonsense. He lost those rounds because of Williams physical advantages, superior speed and activity. Nothing would change in a rematch. As far as Cotto goes, someone who favors him over Williams give me the strategy. He gives up about half a foot, how is he possibly going to get inside at 5'7" when Margarito had a hell of a time doing it at 5'11"? Williams jab rules the day and takes a UD.
Get low and fight shorter, head movement, Joe Frazier style. Use your own jab to work your way in. Stick you own jab right in Williams chest. Slip the jab, step in and hook to the body. Get inside and rip uppercuts. Williams doesn't throw a particularly hard jab and if Cotto stays low, even the jabs that land will hit Cotto on the top of the head, pretty much doing no damage. Very important - Move to the left - keep your left foot on the outside of his. This will help with slipping jabs and hooking to the body to counter Williams jab, as well as help negate the right hand. Change up, of course, the occasional parry and straight right counter down the pipe. Work the body, work the body, work the body, so that even if he does win the early rounds, he has zero gas in the tank for a late push.

As you point out, Tony is a big WW and thus is not used to fighting guys with with equal or greater hight and reach. Look at his early loss to Rodney Jones, a 6'1" southpaw and Daniel Santos 5'11" 1/2 Southpaw. Me thinks Tony has troubles with tall southpaws and the Paul is very bad matchup for him. Cotto has never fought someone with as large a reach advantage, but he fights every fight against guys who have reach advantages over him. Shane - 7", Zab and Quintana 5". I don't know Pinto's reach, but he's 5'11" so I'm guessing he had a huge reach advantage.

Just something to think about...it's Cotto's game to overcome reach disadvantage. That's what he does. Williams would be his biggest challenge in that area, but he'll need to do the same things he does every fight to overcome a reach disadvantage, whereas Tony has a history of problems with tall southpaws.